


Haunted Hallways And Thoughts

by dustydoll



Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance, Panic! at the Disco
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, M/M, Paranormal
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-21
Updated: 2015-08-11
Packaged: 2017-12-30 02:42:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 4
Words: 42,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1013107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dustydoll/pseuds/dustydoll
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>But now, he could hear his mom picking up her cellphone and composing a number.</p><p>She started the conversation. "Hi, Polsia... Yeah... It's been the first day now ... Yeah, the boys are alright... I'm so tired you can't imagine... Yeah... I understand... Well, I don't know much about this house... I don't know... It's a little creepy... Well, I'm not sure if it happened exactly here, but I don't believe in that, so whatever..." and after this, Gerard's mother's voice tone lowered, so she was probably talking shit now. He couldn't understand what they were saying anymore. Something happened here, he didn't know what, but if his mother didn't think it was a danger, it wasn't a danger. That was, like, a fucking international law or something.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Anatomy of a Fall](https://archiveofourown.org/works/155168) by [novembersmith](https://archiveofourown.org/users/novembersmith/pseuds/novembersmith). 



> Hi! I already made a sort of draft of this work called ''The Kids are Alright'' but the scenario was blurry, the characters weren't exactly like I wanted them to be and, to be brief, I wasn't satisfied with it, so I re-wrote the chapter and added better story lines (well, I hope!) and planned the text a little more. To be honest, I'm surprised that I actually wrote a chapter as long as this chapter because I have the attention span of a four year old kid watching a Disney movie. If there are any mistakes, spot them and inform me in the comments or send me a private message! I'm sorry if my sentence structure isn't the best because English isn't my first language. Anyways, enjoy!

A sharp, electric sound woke him up.

''Fuck no.'' were Gerard's first words when he lift his head up. He let it fall back on the pillow and muffled a hoarse growl in it before turning his face, spitting his greasy, black hair out of his mouth, to look at the time. Seven AM. Seven fucking AM. Please, let it be a nightmare. Please. But, it wasn't. He actually had to wake up and go to school. After going to sleep at 3 the day before, his enthusiasm was understandable.

He slowly straightened on his bed, staring around him. This old-ass house was disgusting. The walls weren't covered by horror movie posters and the sun was coming out of a big window. That was way too much light for Gerard, especially at this early hour. He'd cover these up soon. Also, every room was way too empty, only filled with cardboard boxes, looking inhabited and adding to the ancient-looking eeriness. He was sure he could even hear stuff moving in the vents.

Yesterday, they moved from Monroe to Belleville. The car ride wasn't supposed to be that long, but a flat-tire slowed them, accompanied by Gerard's voice announcing that he may or may not have left the new house's keys home, pretty much half-way through the trip.

They made the decision to move out, his brother and his mother and him, a little after Gerard and Mikey's father was found not really golfing with his friends but more likely banging a, Gerard never wanted to call a woman like this, but Mikey agreed, whore. A young, new, shiny, plastic whore. The whole family went to shit and Gerard's mother decided to move in Belleville, so she could have a new start. Mikey and Gerard followed her, because they hated the atrocity that was The Other Woman. But, the cons of this plan was that they both had to start a new life, too. Gerard wouldn't really miss his old school, ugly and full of assholes. He had no friends. Mikey had a friend, him, but it was more the make-school-projects-and-eat-together-at-lunch-because-we're-losers-and-have-no-other-friends type of friend.

Gerard kind of wanted to go back in Monroe, now, where he didn't have sunlight in his room, where he was in a basement and where the walls of his room were tatty, full of posters and not fucking lilac and covered with stickers of giant pink and blue butterflies. But now, he made a choice and he had to suck it up, he knew it. By looking around, he was getting pretty jealous of Mikey's grey room: actually, Gerard lost a dare when they arrived, yesterday night, and the consequence was to pick the last owner's 7 years old daughter's bedroom. God damned kids.

He got up and went to the window, at the end of his bed. He opened it and looked outside. The neighborhood looked kind of scary. The people weren't out much and the old lady from the house in front of his looked at him from her dirty window. Gerard didn't want to smoke with an old ghost-looking woman looking at him, so he picked clothes that didn't smell like teenage boy hormones or cigarette that much - a The Misfits shirt, a green hobo-ish jacket and his washed out and wore through jeans that had been washed maybe, he didn't know, once or twice since he had gotten them? - threw them nonchalantly on his fore-arm and headed to the bathroom in his black shirt and Betty Boop flannel pants.

He gave a quick glance at his reflection in the mirror. Wow, he looked like a stoned zombie (Wait, didn't zombies actually always look stoned? Gotta ask Mikey). He started singing under his breath and turned the water of the shower on. He took off his shirt, slowly preparing to enter the shower. He sang. ''Oh, all I want to know,'' he let his pants and sticky trousers fall on the floor ''all I want, with just a touch of my burning hand'' He turned the cold water tap, then the hot water, put his hand under the stream and-

''Fuck! For fuck's sake, what the hell is that for?!'' Gerard spat out of his teeth. The water burned his hand like he had fucking bitch-slapped Satan. Gerard had been in this house for only 12 hours now and he already hated it. It was old, it creaked, it was cold, the water was burning like hell or freezing like Narnia, they didn't have Wi-Fi and Gerard had heard his mom talking about overdoses or murders in the neighborhood to her friend on the phone.

Gerard set the water to an acceptable heat and hesitatingly stepped in the shower, waiting to be burned alive. He wasn't, so he just started washing his body with his Ma's strawberry shower gel. He wouldn't admit it, but even if it smelled like a girl, it smelled pretty fucking good.

After that, he stepped out of the shower, wrapped a towel around his body and took it off to dry his hair, but he abandoned the task a little bit after because, fuck it, it looked wet and oily anyways. Stupid Italian genes.

He put his clothes on, looked at his reflection in the mirror, passed a hand through his damp hair and applied eye-liner, but he poked his eye and now, he was crying like a bitch. Shitfucker. He held his hand to his eye, applying pressure to it and now, he saw some sorts of red and blue flashy lines in the darkness of his closed lid. Must have pressed too hard. He opened his eye slowly, wiped a tear with his fingers, applied it again, not stabbing his eye this time and went downstairs - fucking rasping steps - to see his brother and mother.

Apparently, he wasn't the only one who had had a bad night. His mother was holding her temples between her fake-nailed fingers and rubbed them slowly against the sides of her head. She then shook her bleached hair with the tip of her fingers, lift her head to see Gerard, mumbled something and went back at drinking her coffee, with inexpressive eyes, surrounded by blue skin.

Mikey was just standing there, looking like a Post Mortem model with his blank gaze focused on, apparently, nothing, his arms along his side. His back was straight, but nothing seemed to have life in him. Gerard sat down, reached for the jug that was at the middle of the table and grabbed a chipped and ugly mug that the Way family had since God knows when. He granted a grunted greeting to his brother and mother while pouring the biggest amount of coffee he could in his mug and started drinking it, trying not to care too much about his burning tongue. Mikey slowly closed his eyes and opened his mouth. Gerard thought he'd say a sarcastic remark or, at least, sigh loudly to greet him, but, no, his only response was the sound of his head ramming on the table, resulting a quick muffled noise made by the plastic of his glasses hitting the table. Good fucking morning to you too.

After a moment (and many burns on his tongue), Gerard asked ''School starts when?

''At 8, but you should be there by '45 if you don't wanna be late.'' answered his mom in a really distressingly tired voice. Donna was going to go work at the hair salon, a job that she found by the intermediate of a friend of hers, back in Monroeville. The time passed, long and silent, broke by noisy coffee sips, courtesy of his mom.

Suddenly, after staring at his mother's watch, Mikey woke up from his coma, dragging his lanky body out of his chair and into the entrance hall to put on his black trench coat, without buttoning it up, on his Anthrax tee. He grabbed his bag and opened the door, ready to go to school. Gerard followed him, taking his bag and without needing to put on a jacket on the one he already wore. The air was chilly since it was October -because Gerard actually had to start school a month late- and Mikey wasn't a fan, judging by his frowned nose. Or maybe he looked like that because they actually had to wait for a bus and take it. Bus sucked ass, and Gerard decided to share his deep thoughts.

''Bus sucks ass.''

Mikey turned his head around, raised an eyebrow at his brother and went back to texting someone frenetically. Gerard knew Mikey agreed because he knew everything about Mikey's facial expressions and this eyebrow clearly showed how much Mikey thought the same as his brother. It was obvious.

Since Mikey wasn't really prompt on conversations this morning, Gerard took some time to look around. Their house was only two blocks away. The sky was grey and white clouds stained it, while partially naked trees made their way on this canvas. Some leaves were spinning around the houses and at Gerard's feet. A small gang of geese was flying a little above the tree branches. A crow was perched on the rooftop of the house besides the street in front of the stop. It was a typical October morning. Dark and cold.

A big yellow school bus destructed the harmony of the grey scenery. Gerard got his head out of his daydream and followed Mikey on the bus, probably walking like a zombie or something as much dead inside. He almost tripped on the little stairs that led to the inside of the bus and took a look at the man with the creepy smile that was driving it. He looked around the bus and at the unknown faces of students that rested on their seats, inexpressive and yawning. A full seat was free and Mikey sat on it, squeezing by the window to let Gerard's fat ass sit with him.

By the time they got to school, the air got hotter and Gerard, less and less motivated. He wasn't really much at first, but now seeing the school, there, big and filled with bored faces, made him kind of realize that he'd prefer to be home and in his bed than be here. He got out of the school bus, lugging his back pack around, trying not to look like wanting to die too much. While walking in the parking lot, some monkey-faced football fucktard laughed, calling him a dyke, because, apparently, the fucking idiot didn't even notice that he actually was a boy. God, such a good morning already.

After walking through the main entrance, Gerard left Mikey on his own and went to collect his schedule at the secretary's office. He started with algebra. His happiness was overwhelming. After walking through labyrinth-like hallways, he found his class. It was pretty small and the desks were two-seats tables. There was around fifteen other students when he entered the class, but he was five minutes early, so the class wasn't full yet. He decided to sit in the middle back, since the corners were already taken by some druggies and a goth or something. The kid was wearing black so it must have been something deep or a special alternative fashion for him.

He hoped to be invisible or some shit as the teacher entered the class and waited at his desk, imposing and angry, until the bell rang and some latecomers skipped into the class. Mr. Rivers, his algebra teacher, like he read on his schedule, started talking about exponents or something like that. Gerard was drawing a double-necked guitar playing unicorn and that was way too much important than exponents, he knew it. He didn't want to make career in something that used maths, it was so useless for him. Gerard probably got a little too absorbed by his thoughts and drawing to actually notice the teacher's shadow on his sheet. When he lifted his head up, the teacher was staring angrily at him.

Well, fuck me. Gerard thought when the teacher opened his mouth to let out a soft but seriously pissed ''It looks like Mr. Way is new and too good for algebra? I see you would like to be in art class. Well, if you're that much willing to waste your time, you should get a detention at lunch, you're gonna love Mrs. Flinch.'' and went back to his desk, angrily turning the page of his notes, him and his fucking ugly caterpillar-looking mustache. That's it, Gerard hated Mr. Rivers for ever now. Black-listed in his fucking book. He was going to be drawn in the most inglorious outfits by now on. Motherfucker.

Gerard had History next and, even if he had some serious bad and boring time earlier, knowing that he'd have a history made him forget Mr. Rivers' fugly face and the detention.

The class went pretty well-except for the brunet asshole behind him that didn't stop hitting rhythmically his foot on Gerard's chair. They talked about the French revolution and, before Gerard could even look at the clock, the lunch bell rang. He had 10 minutes to eat and after, he' d have go in detention.

He hurried in the cafeteria, went in the line-up and looked through the dirty glass that separated students from food, like they'd fucking jump on it and eat like wild animals if it weren't there but, holy shit, who would jump to eat this? The food looked inedible. What the fuck was that? Macaroni or zombie puke? God, was he really supposed to eat? He decided not and only asked for bread, served himself a can of Coke and an apple.

He wasn't that hungry anyways. Well, actually, he was starving, but he tried to convince his stomach that he wasn't. He sat alone, at a table that was besides a window, since Mikey, that was a freshman, ate at a different hour with the sophomores. He let the sun warm up his black shirt and did his best to eat slowly because he heard his mother say that if you eat slowly, you feel full quicker. The clock went on the 2 and Gerard rapidly sat up and dropped the rest of the can's content between his legs. God fucking dammit, wasn't his day already bad enough?! He didn't have time to cry over the disaster that was his life and had to go with an empty stomach and a Coke-wet crotch.

Entering the detention room, he was surprised to see a woman that, actually, didn't look like giving a fuck, she just filed her nails and watched something on her computer. Gerard gave her his detention ticket and looked around. He saw a guy with a vertiginous amount of curly hair and a AC/DC shirt. Nice. Another guy, at his right, with blonde, green-hatted hair, talked to him and was smiling. They were probably having a laugh at him. He'd be laughing at himself too, with his smudged eyeliner, his dirty-green jacket and his wet crotch. The blond, chubby one looked kind of cute, though, even if he was probably mocking his ass. He sat in front of them and proceeded to start copying 100 times ''I will not draw in class.''. He really wanted to add ''even if my drawing is super rad'' but, it'd make him more in trouble, so he restrained his compulsion.

The lock-gifted guy behind him started to poke him with his pencil on his scapula, and, fuck, Gerard thought, another asshole. He really won't have it easier than he had it in Monroe. When Gerard finally turned around to ask him to fucking stop or he'd make him eat his socks, the guy smiled and, even thought he wasn't as pretty as the guy at his side, his smile really lightened his face. It looked true and beautiful.

''So, you a new guy, isn't it? If not, well, I'm sorry, but I've never seen you. I just wanted to tell you nice t-shirt.

''I am. And thanks?'' Gerard was hesitant. Why the hell did he speak to him? It was cool, yes, but why?

'' Sweet! I'm Ray Toro, welcome in Belleville High School, hope that it won't bother you to find corpses in the backyard.

''Don't forget the time we found a body in the lake, near of your house, dude!'' added the little guy. ''I'm Patrick Stump, by the way. Bob should also come soon. Oh, and'' he continued after Gerard's nervous look at the lady ''she really doesn't care. She's always watching Beverly Hills 90210, she has no time to lose with us. We just don't have to speak louder than her computer's volume can go or she'll be pissed and really force us to copy stuff.

''Yeah, just stop right now this copy, it won't change anything in your life, man. So, which year are you in?''

Gerard looked at him incredulously, shifted his eyes to Patrick and went back to Toro. ''Hum, I'm a junior, my name's Gerard.

''That's rad! We're both juniors too!'' Ray said, smiling even wider, if it was possible. Then, his eyes turned to the door. ''Oh, look, I think Bob's coming!'' he said. Just when Ray mentioned this, a blonde, little taller than Gerard but much larger guy entered the room. He had a lip piercing and looked pretty tired.

''Hey, guys.

''Lemme guess,'' started Ray ''You fell asleep in class.

''Woah, are you Sherlock Holmes or something, man?'' he raised an eyebrow and, without waiting for an answer, pointed his chin at Gerard. ''Who that?'' Bob asked, taking a seat in front of Gerard and turning around the chair, his crotch on the back of it, to face Gerard. He wrapped his arms around it.

''That's a new guy! His name's Gerard and he likes the Misfits! Isn't it Gerard? And where do you come from? Are you one of these guys who got expelled from the private school near downtown? You know, the ones who decided to write in Ketchup on the walls 'The Chamber of Secrets has been opened. Enemies of the Heir beware'. Was it Queen of Peace?

''Maybe it was Bethel? I'm not sure anymore, man.'' Patrick guessed.

''Hm.'' Gerard snorted and smiled a little bit over Ray's questions and Patrick's analysis. He was kind of shy, nobody really asked about him. Normally, he just sat there and hoped that nobody would acknowledge his presence. And it normally worked. But now, these dudes just looked at him and seemed weirdly interested. ''Well, yeah, I kind of really like the Misfits, Black Flag and punk or alternative music in general. And, nah, I wish, but I moved in there from Monroe with my Mom and my brother. That's pretty much it, I'm not that interesting.

''Well, that's cool, heard Monroe is great. Well, the murder rate is lower, anyways. So, you like punk?'' asked Ray with, surprisingly, interest. ''That's epic man, my brother introduced me to rock and I adore punk. Do you like other bands?

''Well, I really like Iron Maiden and, even thought it's not a band, I like David Bowie, he's pretty sweet. Hm, there's also bands that my brother likes, like The Smiths, Smashing Pumpkins and Anthrax?'' Ray beamed and looked at Patrick. Patrick had a cute little smile on his face. Even though Bob didn't really smile, we could see in his eyes that he was happy to hear that.

''Wow, your taste in music is fucking great dude, you're our friend from now on, you can't escape anymore. You should totally be in the school's band.

''Oh, well, hum, thanks?'' Gerard said, maybe blushing. It was the first time people actually wanted to be his friend, except the time in Elementary School when he made three friends because he gave them candies at recess. Wow, his social life officially sucked.

Patrick asked ''But, seriously, you're a David Bowie fan? Awesome man. I adore him. Favorite album?

''The Rise and Fall.'' Gerard replied without hesitation.

''Preach.'' was Patrick's only answer before Mrs. Flinch hushed them noisily, looking at them as if she could file them to death.

''So, maybe we could hang out with the other guys, tomorrow, somewhere else than this room?'' asked Patrick, almost whispering, more to Ray and Bob than Gerard.

''Yeah, we totally should, it'd be great. I'm sure Pete would like him.'' replied Ray, with a cheerful smile on his face, still speaking on a normal tone of voice. Then, the bell rang. ''Oh well, Gerard, see you in the cafeteria, tomorrow lunch. We'll go in the band room after. Bring your lunch, you really don't wanna eat at the cafeteria.''

It was the best detention Gerard ever had. He felt like in the Breakfast Club. But the detention wasn't as long. And he didn't get out with a girlfriend or his vision of life changed or whatever, but with good friends, which was pretty great, if you asked him. And he really looked forward to tomorrow lunch.

 

''So, how was school for you?'' asked Mikey at Gerard, seeming tired, when they met up in bus.

''T'was great. I made friends, I think you'd like'em. They also told me that you can easily find a dead body in the park. What about you?

''Wow, they seem completely sane.

''Yeah, fuckass, and I bet you have found friends already?'' The engine gasped and the bus started moving.

''Yeah, some cool band kids. One is fighting the school's rules over makeup by drawing birds on his face. They're pretty rad.

''Wow'' was Gerard's only answer, because he could only say that. The rest of the ride passed in a comfortable and tired silence. When they came back home, it was freezing, even more inside the house than outside. Goddamn, he hated this house so much. After dropping their bags on the floor and taking off their shoes, Gerard asked to his brother ''So, you like the house?''.

''No, I don't have a good feeling about it, seriously. I'm hearing the walls creak in my room.'' replied Mikey with disdain.

''Well, I heard Mom talking with Polsia that some murders happened in the neighborhood?

''Fuck me.'' Mikey replied, sighing.

''Sorry, it'd be incest.'' said Gerard with a smirk.

''I hate you so much.'' Mikey answered and shuffled in the direction his room.

 

After taking a smoke in the backyard, Gerard went back to his room. It was so weird to him to crawl upstairs instead of going downstairs to exclude himself from everyone and write comics.

Gerard's new room was besides him mom's. He could hear everything that was happening in there, from her opening the box that contained her TV to her rummaging through her clothing in the several boxes that covered her room's floor. He thought he could even hear her fake nails scratching her bleached blond hair, but maybe it was Gerard's imagination. Previously, during supper, he asked her about having his room in the basement again and she replied, tired and rude, ''Wait the fuck up, I didn't even finish unpacking my makeup, so wait a little bit before asking me to make you a new room because you're too much of a vampire to even live in sunlight.'' and that pretty much ended the conversation.

But now, he could hear her picking up her cellphone and composing a number. Gerard dropped his marker that he used to draw his Buffy fan-comic with and listened to his mother. That was a little creepy, but it was his mother, so he didn't care.

She started the conversation. ''Hi, Polsia... Yeah... It's been the first day now ... Yeah, the boys are alright... I'm so tired you can't imagine... Yeah... I understand... Well, I don't know much about this house... I don't know... It's a little creepy... Well, I'm not sure if it happened exactly here, but I don't believe in that, so whatever...'' and then, Gerard didn't understand what they were talking about. Something happened here, he didn't know what, but if his mother didn't think it was a danger, so it wasn't a danger. That was, like, a fucking international law or something.

At 1, Gerard's hand grew tired and he decided it was time to go to sleep. He laid in bed, on the covers, for a moment, with his clothes on. After, he decided that he could smoke a little more and sat on the side of his opened window, puffing outside, not to make his entire room stink. Then, he put his pajamas on. Gerard went under the covers and sunk his head in his dirty pillow. He heard creaking noises in the walls and it seriously freaked him out. He also heard the same noises on the stairs and he imagined that skeletons actually went up the stairs and he crept himself out. But after a moment, he imagined being a friend with those skeletons and making puns about the funny bone and fell asleep, feeling somewhat lost in his new room.

The next morning, Gerard was awoken by Mikey's whinny and tired voice that announced him that he was late. Gerard slowly turned his head to look at the clock and saw the time. The little black electric quadrant showed 7 and a half. He twirled his blankets in the air with one arm to get out of bed, put on some clothes, didn't have time to shower and took a quick glance at the mirror. He moved some misplaced parts of his bangs and remembered that he forgot to take his eyeliner off the day before, so he was okay for the makeup.

He hurried downstairs to fill a take-out mug of coffee, spilling it everywhere on his white David Bowie shirt, and fuck, he really liked this shirt. Now, David had a brown blotch on his left cheek. Gerard ran to the door, put on his Converses as fast as they would allow, put on a black cotton zip-up and announced Mikey that he was ready to go. They ran to the bus stop, with Mikey behind him, being pretty slow, like Gerard, but, unlike him, he had asthma, not too much baby fat left in stock. Just when they were in front of their assigned stop, the yellow vehicle was arriving. Gerard was pretty happy about it because, if they were late, they'd have to run (well, mostly walk because they couldn't run for more than thirty seconds at a time) to school, and Gerard really wasn't ready to go to school all sweaty and red and breathless.

In the bus, Gerard talked to Mikey about his mother's conversation with her friend and Mikey only answered him that he was being paranoid, then proceeded to steal sips from Gerard's coffee thermos.

When they arrived at school, Gerard let Mikey on his own and he looked at his schedule. He had science. He walked rapidly in the crowded hallways and-ouch, the asshole that was kicking his chair the day before pushed him in a locker, and fuck, he didn't have time to tell him how much of a bigoted asshole he was. He entered in the biology laboratory right when the bell rang. Gerard spotted Ray's glorious hair in the front corner of the class and sat, jaded, on a little green and uncomfortable stool, a little breathless from hurrying himself. He started listening to the teacher's speech but, man, talking about eyes' anatomy really did make him want to go back to sleep. Ray seemed to think the same. The logical thing to do was to debate on whether 'Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness' should have been only one album or two. And now, he was threatened by Mrs. Lalonde's latex gloves and her foggy goggles.

''Hey! If I hear you guys talk again, you'll go in detention and I know it won't be your first time, Toro.'', Mrs. Lalonde interrupted angrily Gerard and Ray's conversation.  
''Sorry, miss'' grumbled Ray and Gerard had found a sudden interest in picking his black nail polish. Wow, he should totally paint his nails again, they looked like Gollum's nails, well, if he wore nail polish. Yeah, he should draw this one day, Gollum putting on nail polish.  
The imposant woman stepped away and Gerard let out a soft giggle at the bizarre image the teacher with her eyes all big and frog-ish in her glasses, even if she was threatening them seconds earlier. Ray gave him in a confused look and Gerard waved him off, writing notes again. No wonder Gerard couldn't get any friends, he was a total weirdo with a weird sense of humor. Ray was probably hanging out with him just because he had pity of his miserable face and lack of friends. He would probably dump him when he'd find cooler friends, like that Bert kid did in Monroe.

Class ended and Gerard waited for Ray to pick all his stuff to follow him in the hallways. The monkey-faced guy who called him a dyke the day before was there and Gerard made his best to hide himself behind his bangs. And Ray. We're never too safe.

''Hey, sorry man, about Miss Lalonde. I kinda was in her class last year with Bob and we just didn't stop talking. You can't imagine the number of detention I had because of that. Anyways, what do you have next?

''Hum, I have...'' Gerard got his schedule, all torn and wrinkled, and tried to find what he had second period of day 5. ''I have English. I guess I'll see you later?

''Yeah, I'll meet you inside your class. It's in room 515 isn't it?

''Huh, no, in the room 315.

''Oh yeah, I got confused. Okay, yeah, I'll meet you there. Bye, Gerard!''

After Ray took off, turning in the opposite way, Gerard watched his fro move through the sea of people. When he couldn't see his friend, Gerard walked in class and, hallelujah!, found a desk at the back corner of the room. He got his stuff out of his black backpack that he decorated with little alien and The Misfits patches. He was pretty proud of it because a lot of blood and tears were included in the making of this bag.

A kid sat at his table, besides him. He looked kind of cool. Well, cool in Gerard's conception of cool. He had the same amount of hair as Ray but in darker, had a long aquiline nose, had some tattoos on his right arm (Gerard was sat at his right side, so he could see them easily) and also wore a Star Wars t-shirt, which Gerard found pretty awesome. He decided that, hey, why not start a chat with him. He was probably already qualified as a loser, so there was nothing to lose, isn't it?

He turned his head and said a shy ''Hi.'' The other student looked at him. ''Hey.'' He had a weird voice, but, instead of being annoying, it just added to his awesomeness. Gerard stared at his eyes for a moment. Man, he had awesome eyes, blue like Listerine or the liquid they put on pads in commercials. Or maybe not the later one. He hesitated, looked down and back at the boy's eyes and dropped: ''I'm sorry dude, but I love your shirt. I really like Star Wars. What's you favorite episode?'' trying not to look too nervous. Be cool, he told himself, but it's hard when you're not, said another part of himself.

''Nah, I don't watch Star Wars, I just liked the t-shirt, to be honest.'' replied the kid, seeming uninterested. Gerard turned around looking at his work and replied ''Oh, okay, I'm sorry, man.'' and, oh God, Gerard ridiculed himself again. Now, he'll be the freak that liked Star Wars to this cool kid and the cool kid would tell all his friends and his friends would tell their friends and then all the city would mock Gerard for being a fail and loving Star Wars and being unable to have a good conversation and why was Gerard that dumb, why wasn't he cool like the kid in front of him?!

The kid just looked at Gerard and started talking, all smiling and laughing, ''Hey, dude, I was just being sarcastic, I adore Star Wars!'' he opened his arms, showing his t-shirt, as if he could prove how much of a fan he was by making Gerard look hard enough into Darth Vader's eyes (holes in his mask, whatever). ''Like, 95% of my closet is filled with Star Wars action figures and I would like to be kidding.''

Okay, this was totally awesome and Gerard turned his face and fucking beamed at him, with his weird teeth and all, because that was wonderful. This guy just became Gerard's first inspiration in life. ''Man, that's just perfect! I have some, but nothing rare or special, you know. I'm trying to get the Vinyl Cape Jawa but it's supposed to be like, 2,000 dollars and I simply don't have the budget. Hell, I don't even have the budget to buy the new Doom Patrol issue.'' It was hard not to look too keen and, even if he tried to hide his excitement, he knew he failed at this. The black-haired guy laughed nasally and started talking lower, approaching his face to Gerard's, as if he was telling a secret.

''I actually have the Telescoping Lightsaber Darth Vader from 1978.''

Gerard's eyes went big and he shouted. ''No!'' A blonde girl with way too much lip-gloss on turned around and looked at him weird with her big eyes, surrounded by sparkly eyeliner, and Gerard lowered the volume of his voice. It was now reduced to a whisper-scream ''You're kidding me right?! It's like 6,000 dollars!

''My father was a fan from the start.'' Joe was still talking in a normal tone of voice. ''He actually was the one who introduced Star Wars to me at 5, so he already had collectibles only after the first movie and I inherited from those. I'm a pretty lucky guy.

''Man, that's not luck, that's being God's pet or something.'' The guy laughed again and asked him. ''What's your name? I never seen you around.''

''I'm Gerard, I'm from Monroe but I moved here like, 2 days ago. What's your name?''

''I'm Joe and wow, do you like it in here? It's kind of ghetto-ish, but, hey, it's home you know?''

''I'm not a big fan yet, but some people are pretty nice here.'' Gerard hesitated mentioning that he knew Toro. Maybe Joe and Ray weren't friends or hated each other and then, because Gerard was a friend of Ray, Joe wouldn't want to be his friend and talk to him about Star Wars anymore. Then, he thought, fuck it. ''Like Ray Toro? I don't know if you know him, but he's pretty rad.'' Gerard finally managed to say.

''Ray's my homie. I eat with him at lunch. Do you?''

''Yeah, well, I didn't yesterday because I had detention but I met him there, with Bob and, hum, Patrick, I think?''

''You gotta eat with us.'' The bell rang and the conversation ended there.

Ray met him, like agreed, in front of the class for lunch. Ray smiled when he saw Gerard and went to pet Joe's hair when he saw him.

''Dude, I didn't know you shared class with Gerard. He's good people.''

''Yeah, I talked to him, he's a sweet dude.'' he replied, smiling at Gerard. Gerard was kinda happy about that. A cool kid like Joe just said he was sweet! How awesome was that? Then, they followed the horde of students to the cafeteria.

The room was gigantic. There were two entrances, one at the left of a hall, one at the right and there was a food counter in front of the right entrance. Most of the time, there were students waited in line to get a lunch or a snack. ''They only line up to get cookies. They're the only thing worth of being called food here.'' Ray told him in his ear, unable to whisper and be understood with all the noise that was invading the room. He followed Joe and Ray in the crowded cafeteria and he guessed at which table they'd sit without even recognizing Bob and Patrick. All of it's occupant whether wore black band t-shirts, had black or dyed hair or had body modification, so it was pretty obvious that they'd be friends with Ray or Joe.

The gang were a pretty big contrast from the natural-coloured hair kids who wore some more normal and less intensely black clothes. Ray made a hand gesture towards the table, as if he was a butler presenting his master's majestic house but, instead of being all fancy and shit, Ray wore a black Iron Maiden shirt and, instead of a fabulous ball room with chandeliers, he presented him a white, plastic lunch table. It was as good for Gerard since the table was surrounded by good people. He even saw the goth kid that only wore black that he saw in class yesterday. He did not notice before, but this one guy had pink-red tip-dyed bangs over his right eye and wore eye-liner. That looked pretty cool, in Gerard's opinion. Gerard sat down between a column that was at the end of the table and Ray.

Patrick was installed in front of him. There was a ginger dude with an under-lip piercing who already had a great amount of tattoos on his arms eating a sandwich, talking between bites about drums to Bob. Ray was sitting besides Joe near of the goth kid and, at the other end of the table, there was a free seat. Gerard bent his body a little bit to his right and asked Ray, as if he was whispering, if someone was going to sit there. Ray answered him that yes, he just was late for whatever reason. Gerard started to talk to the guys and learned that the goth kid's name was Pete and that the ginger's was Andy. They all were speaking about their classes and, somehow, Pete ended up telling how bad his science class went.

''...We had to be in teams but I ended up being alone and the girls at the table besides me started talking about how one of them got a tampon stuck in her vagina and how she had to almost put her complete hand in it to take it out and how, now, her mother didn't want her to wear tampons ever again because of that.'' There was a long silence, filled with disgusted faces and cringing.''

''Too much information, Pete. Ew. Just. Ew.'' said Patrick, sounding kind of annoyed and really much grossed out.

''I know.'' sighed Pete gloomily.

After a silence, when the guys recovered from this horrible story that'll scar them for life, probably, a swarthy guy passed behind Pete and high-fived him.

''Hey, Gay-be.'' said Pete, smiling at the boy.

''What up, Petey-boy?'' asked the guy and, without hesitation, Pete replied ''My dick.'' The guy laughed and went away. Ray later told him that this guy was called Gabe Saporta, was a freshman but probably had gotten laid more than their whole gang put together and that he was one of Pete's best friend, after their gang. He was there this lunch because he and his friends had a free block and decided to stay in the cafeteria instead of going in the library. He also knew that Pete's and Gabe's relationship basically revolved around stupid dick jokes when they were at school and that they mostly socialized during parties.

Gerard started eating his chicken wrap and a dude bumped pretty hard in Gerard's chair. He thought that it was the guy who called him a dyke, again, so he turned around, ready to tell this asshole to fuck off, but, instead of monkey-head, there actually was a short black-haired guy with tattoos. An attractive short black-haired guy with tattoos. Okay, he was simply hot.

He sat at the free place and the guys greeted him. ''Hey, Frank! Why are you late?''

''I made something explode again in chemistry class and I had to clean it up. Woops.'' He didn't sound sorry at all. His voice was childish but with a manly tone and Gerard couldn't help but stare at his moving lip piercing when he talked. He had some tattoos on his arms and a scorpion behind his right ear. ''Who's the guy who joined the crew?'' he asked, looking at Gerard, and it took Gerard a moment to stop staring at his lips before realizing that he talked about himself.

''Oh, hum, I'm Gerard, moved from Monroe. I met Ray, Patrick and Bob yesterday. I guess I was the Chosen One for the gang because I like the Misfits?''

The boy chuckled ''Man, that's awesome. I'm Frank. Do you like Black Flag?''

''Fuck to the yeah.'' replied Gerard and Frank answered with a short giggle that Gerard would like to record and listen to on repeat again and again for years and, wow, Gerard's never been that creepy. Frank proceeded to ask Patrick how did he and Joe meet, on the subject of new people. Gerard could only admire Frank's whole person and listen because he was afraid that if he actually did talk, he'd only say dumb things like ''Do you wanna make out?'' and that would put the slightest discomfort in the atmosphere of the table.

''Oh, man, don't ask me about his!'' said Patrick, giggling. ''In freshman, I was an artsy indie-rock snob and every other music style that people listened to were way beneath me. I knew, somehow, stuff about rock and Jersey's punk scene. Then, I heard Joe talking about a band to Pete and said it was a certain music genre and I knew it wasn't that style. Actually, we're still not sure who was right, but hey, who cares?'' He smiled, laughing a little, looking at Pete and Joe, in search of an agreement. ''So, I went to him and told him how he was wrong, how could he dare, and, surprisingly, they didn't think I was a complete ass and,'' he paused a little, to shut Pete up ''if they did, they didn't show it. They continued talking to me. We made friends and I fell in love with the punk music they showed me, but I still love jazz and blues.

''Jazz and blues?'' Gerard managed to choke out while swallowing Coke. The guys laughed at him a little bit and Patrick agreed by shaking his head.

''Yeah, those aren't as boring as people think!'' Patrick made a pause, eating a cookie. He continued, mouth still full ''Well, actually, they are boring. I'm a boring person.'' and he laughed. Gerard decided that Patrick was extremely cute and that he wouldn't let people make him sad. He was too precious for this. And all the guys around this table were. Even if he knew them for not even two days, he felt that he was their friend and it was one of the first time that he sat at a table with that much people that he felt good with. He hoped they didn't hate him.

''Sh, it's okay Patrick, we still love you.'' said Pete, kind of breaking Gerard's moment and petting Patrick's hair and the blond leaned in, purring and rubbing his face on Pete's arm, like a cat, and they both started laughing after, along with the table.

Gerard felt great.

On the bus ride back home, Mikey talked to Gerard on how one his new friends put on too much eye-makeup today and that made him in trouble. He stated that it was the same kid who drew birds on the side of his face to militate against the makeup rules in school. Mikey also explained him how they dressed.

''I'm telling you, dude, it really surprises me that you didn't notice them in the hallways because they're dressing up like circus freaks. With the hats, white shirts, brown sleeveless blazers, flowers attached to their pockets and all that shit.'' Gerard didn't believe him and was used to Mikey's exaggeration of things, so he didn't really mind. ''Also, I met another guy, he's pretty sweet. He has another gang of friends, but he says that he also hangs out with the circus freaks, so that's great.''

It was dinner and Gerard's mom, Donna, made some pasta. He was putting Parmesan cheese in it. They ate pretty late since Gerard's mom had to get back home from work at 7 because of her job and her sons did nothing to help her. Until 7, they only watched a Tim Burton marathon on the TV (and it took them at least 30 minutes to connect and be able to finally watch the said-TV).

''Gerard, that's salty as hell, you know.'' his mom informed him, talking about the Parmesan cheese. And that's why he put even more into his plate.

''You're a freak.'' Mikey said, neutrally.

''Mikey, don't be a dick to your brother. Plus, you had to keep it a secret until he's 18.

''Haha, really funny.'' Gerard replied, poking at his spaghetti.

After a silence, Donna announced ''Sons, I have to tell you, the salon is going under renovations and I have to help during the night, so you guys will probably be alone for most of the time at night this month and maybe the next, if there are complications. I'm sorry. And, Gerard, this week-end, a man will come here to renovate the basement an prepare your new room. Just answer the questions he asks you, I'll leave a plan of your room somewhere in your current one.'' Then, it was Mikey's turn to wash the dishes and Gerard and his mom went to their respective rooms. Gerard was exhausted by all that unusual socialization, so he only smoked on the edge of his opened window, slipped into his pajamas and went to sleep. The creaking noises haunted his ears. He finally drifted into a scanty sleep, after imagining several horror movie scenarios.

The next morning, he woke up, wrapped in his sheets, freezing. Even with the sunlight that was supposed to be warming up the room, he couldn't feel his feet and his nose. He let out a breath and, oh shit, it was so cold he could see it. He unrolled himself from his blankets and immediately realized that it was a terrible idea and that the whole room was freezing. The floor froze his feet and, Jesus Christ, it was almost a skating rink. He put on a hoodie and wool socks and got out of his room. The cold surprisingly woke him up way better than anything else. He went downstairs when Mikey was making coffee and his brother looked at him weird.

''Are you ready for a fucking Canadian winter or something?'' Mikey's tired voice told asked him, eyebrows arched and the whole what-the-fuck-are-you-doing face.

''Dude, we were freezing in my room?! And here, we're... Alright?...'' Mikey just looked at him as if he was becoming crazy and Gerard started to believe this too. ''Dude, I'm telling you!'' He grabbed Mikey's arm and dragged him upstairs, in his room. When they entered in it, it was... normal. There wasn't anything freezing, Gerard's breath didn't form little clouds and he still felt his nose. Mikey raised an eyebrow at him and Gerard couldn't say anything else than ''No, I'm telling you, my breath was making smoke and shit!'' Mikey waved his hand at him and went back to make his coffee.

He was really becoming mad.

 

''I'm telling you! It was freezing!

''Well, that's weird, but I guess it's an old house, you know, shit happens. Maybe your mom didn't pay the heather yet?'' Gerard was talking to Ray on their way to the cafeteria. Bob was with them, too, since they all had computer studies together. It was a rainy and cloudy Friday afternoon. Nobody could concentrate in class, so they had the permission to watch videos on YouTube and just fool around.

''No, I'm telling you, it was even colder than outside! My breath could do little clouds!

''Maybe it was a ghost.'' Bob added, matter-of-factly.

''Thanks, Bob, I feel so much safer, now.'' Gerard said wearily.

They all came into the cafeteria, sat at the table and Gerard only noticed that Frank was wearing a sweater today. It was green, maybe three sizes too big and Frank wore the sleeves on his hand. It was pretty fucking cute. Frank was pretty fucking cute.

Oh god, Gerard was so creepy.

''Hey, guys, you come just in time to answer Patrick's existential question!'' Pete greeted them. He was wearing a striped hoodie. Pretty much the whole table wore sweaters or jackets because, maybe today wasn't that cold, but the school's staff didn't seem to notice that nobody needed air conditioning in the middle of October. Except Andy. Andy was way too cool for that shit and was wearing a t-shirt. Gerard asked himself how did he not turn into a Mr. Freeze right away.

''Pete, god.'' said Patrick, sounding kind of annoyed.

''Come on, ask them, Stumpy!'' encouraged Frank, sounding pretty amused of the whole situation.

''Okay, I was only asking if I should grow my sideburns again, don't make a big fuss about it!''

''Patrick, it is a big thing! We have to make a big fuss about it!'' replied Pete, laughing with a shit-eating grin.

''I'm telling you, you shouldn't! You're way too cute, little Stumpy.'' said Frank, trying to keep a serious face.

''Goddammit guys, you are so immature. I'm only asking if I should do it, that's all!''

Gerard hesitated and said ''I agree with Frank. You shouldn't grow your sideburns out.''

Patrick interrupted the laughter and the storm of different opinions on his facial hair and asked Gerard ''Hey, dude, I was thinking about it: do you wanna join the school's band?''

''Hum, I'm not good at any instrument.''

''You could play triangle.'' Andy said, making the guys laugh again. ''No, but seriously, you should try.'' he continued, after taking a bite of his last supper's steak.

''Yeah, I'm not sure.'' Gerard replied, fidgeting in his chair, feeling a little bit embarrassed. All these guys played instruments and Bob told him that Patrick could be an orchestra himself because he played so many instruments. Gerard once tried to play guitar, but he sucked ass. Those guys probably laughed of him in his back while they were playing with their guitars and basses and drums.

''Okay, band practice is Tuesday, we'll take you!'' Patrick said, and no? Gerard didn't sign up for being mocked by a bunch of teenage virtuosos. He would just be the laughingstock of the band, no even able to play maracas without fucking up.

 

He was stuffing his stuff into his bag hurriedly so he wouldn't miss the bus. He seriously didn't want to walk 45 minutes to go back home with all this rain. And even without rain, he was way too lazy and out of shape to go up all these hills that were scattered on his way home. His bus was parked maybe 10 meters away from him when he saw monkey-face. The asshole shoved Gerard in the shoulder and Gerard just dropped all his stuff on the wet and cold ground. The dickhead laughed and was about to go away with it, but Gerard was so done with this shitfucker, he didn't get his stuff from the floor and went in the guy's way, lifting his chin to look right into his eyes. ''What the fuck is your problem, asshole?! Do you need to show your masculinity by shoving the new guy or what?'' and now, he kind of regretted screaming to his face because the guy was, at least, six foot tall and looked way larger than Gerard. He really should just have sucked it up instead of doing his super hero. He hated himself.

The maleficent grin washed away from the guy's hateful face and said ''What the fuck did you just say, faggot?

''I-I told, I asked you what the fuck was your problem?'' replied Gerard hesitantly, way less brave than seconds before. He should just have shut his mouth up.

The dick made an evil smile again and took Gerard by the arm. He tried to wrestle against him but he wasn't a fucking mountain of muscle, unlike monkey-face, only a fat 5 feet 4 teenager who's biggest physical effort of the day was going up the stairs.

He arrived at the back of the gym's wall, dragged by the guy, and he saw some other jocks that were smoking. Oh shit, he saw those guys hang out with monkey-face. ''Oh shit'' were the only word that Gerard could manage out of his gritted teeth. It was an aggressive whisper.

''Guys, look who I got. He tried to sass me out. Maybe we should show him how this school works?'' That was not a good sign for Gerard. The only thing he remembers were throaty laughs, one of the guys, a brunet who wore a blue varsity jacket, pushing and maintaining him against the wall while monkey-face was punching him in the stomach and the face while the others watched.

When his lip was busted and he couldn't breath anymore, they called it quit and ran away, crushing their cigarette butts between the floor and their running shoes. Gerard, released, fell on the floor on all four and was trying to catch his breath. The rain was falling way more heavily on his arched back now, wetting his Green Day hoodie. After he could finally feel like his body wouldn't collapse under his weight, Gerard got up, steadying himself against the wall he just go beat up on. He really just should have shut his stupid fucking mouth.

He went back on the sidewalk were he was walking unstably to pick up his bag on his knees. His notes were flooded, ink running down along with water drops, his backpack was full of mud on the outside and his sketchbook had sand and water on it, but it wasn't as spoiled as his science notes, barely readable anymore. He put the stuff back in his black bag, stood up, trying not to burst in tears and looked around him. All the bus were gone. He would have to walk back home.

He hated himself.

He straightened his jacket, put his hoodie up the show how much he was frustrated about the world. He walked in the rain, all dramatic, smudging his eyeliner around his eyes and wanted to cry so hard, it was hard to contain his tears. He felt humiliated, lost and so frustrated about the whole situation. He'd be beat up like he was in Monroe and there was nothing he could do against it.

He retrieved his iPod from his bag and listened to music to zone out. That didn't happen. He totally did not feel humiliated and he didn't hurt all over. He heard a car honk, not too far away but didn't mind. Then, the honking got closer and more persistent. He took his earphones out of his ears to look behind him at what was happening.

A dude with black and curly hair was hitting the horn from behind the driver's seat and, oh my God, it was Joe! Joe, Frank, Patrick, Ray and Pete! Gerard beamed at then, in spite of his of lip's wound opening and his dripping eyeliner making him look like a mess. Gerard waved at them frantically, in case they just didn't see that he absolutely needed a lift.

Pete, who was on the passenger's seat, opened the window. ''Dude, you look like you've been ran over. I think you'll need a lift?

''Fuck yeah.'' Gerard said, without hesitation, not even offended. He must have been looking like shit. Frank, who sat on the right of the backseat, opened the door and let Gerard squeeze in with him, Patrick and Ray. He held his breath, trying not to take too much space, and was about to take his belt to secure himself when Pete told him that his car's right backseat's security belt was broken and Gerard repeated, surprised ''Your car?'' he paused, looking at Joe in the mirror ''Why's Joe driving, then?

''Because Pete got his licence suspended because he's a criminal.'' replied Joe, only half-joking. ''So, Gerard, I'm sorry if you wanna go home, but are are kidnapping and taking you to Pete's house.'' Gerard was okay with that. And he was also okay to be squeezed on a cute punk guy wearing a sweater. He didn't really talk to Frank, so he wasn't really close to him (not literally, in this case) but he really did want to talk more to him, but he was so dumb he'd say really embarrassing stuff and Frank would end up hating him or some shit, so Gerard didn't really dare talking to him.

''What the fuck happened to your face, dude?'' asked Patrick, leaning forward, face on the side, to look at Gerard. Gerard growled and said ''Some asshole decided that I was being a little too 'sassy' for him and decided to punch me with his dickhead of friends, that's all.

''Dude, what did you say to him, exactly?'' asked Ray.

Gerard sighed and replied ''I asked him why he needed to show his masculinity by shoving me around.

''Who was it?'' asked Pete.

''I don't know, some guy with a monkey-face. He has chestnut hair and he's always wearing the same camo jacket.'' The guys hissed, making scrunched up faces. ''Man, you just messed with one of the most aggressive piece of shit of the whole school.'' Pete said, sounding kind of hurt for Gerard. The guys talked about how his name was Rick Hagan, that he almost punched everyone at school at least once and how his friends were called Greg Owen (that was the brown-haired guy) and Dough Bonham. They warned him about them and the boys went silent.

''So, you said you moved with your brother?'' Frank asked, his mouth so close to Gerard's face that he could smell his cigarette breath.

''Yeah. He's really cool but, I won't introduce him to you because you guys will think that he's way cooler than me and ditch me.'' said Gerard. This was more pathetic than funny, but they laughed and Gerard felt a little better. ''He really likes The Smiths, Anthrax and Smashing Pumpkins. You guys didn't meet him because he's a freshman.

''Oh, maybe he knows your steampunk prostitutes-obsessed minions freaks, Pete!'' said Frank. ''Yeah, maybe. Oh, Gerard, Tuesday, you're gonna meet Brendon and his gang and I'm pretty much their mentor. They are awesome, you gonna love them!'' Pete said, looking in the mirror to make eye contact with Gerard. Gerard smiled and, even if he sucked at music, he was excited about the band's practice because that meant he'd pass some more time with all the guys and meet their friends, even if he would be humiliated by his talent in music. Or more lack of. ''Hey, can I smoke in here?

''Yeah, as long as you open the window, please. I'm used to Frank always smoking and getting high with Joe in here.'' replied Pete.

''Don't do drugs, kids.'' said Joe, kind of randomly, high-fiving Frank from the front of the car. It made Gerard snort. He opened the window, rummaged in his back to find his pack and noticed that he lost it when the jock threw his bag on the ground. ''Hey, Frank? Could I have a smoke, please? I lost my pack when I was busy being shoved around by some assholes.''

Frank looked at him with big eyes, expressing pity, and said ''Yeah, totally man.'' and gave him a cigarette. Gerard put it in his mouth. ''You need fire?'' asked Frank. Gerard shook his head yes and held out his hand to take Frank's lighter but Frank brought the lighter to Gerard's cigarette, between his lips, and lit it up. Gerard's eyes got huge and he could feel he was blushing, but he just muttered a ''Thanks.'' on his cigarette and turned around, facing the opened window to hide his blushing, looking at the smoke fly in the wind. They finally arrived at somewhere looking like his neighborhood. ''Joe? Are we on the Bloomfield Avenue?

''Yeah, we are. You live near here?

''Yes, I live on Clement Street. Where does Pete live?

''He lives on Chestnut Street, so you guys are close!''

After a moment, Pete let out a ''Here we are.'' and the guys got off of the car. It was almost dark outside and the rain stopped minutes before. Water was running down the trees' leaves and the droplets on the grass were sparkling under the house's lights. Pete's house wasn't that big and a rock pavement led the boys to the house.

Pete opened the door and his friends followed him. They all awkwardly greeted his parents and went downstairs, in the basement. It was a big room, kind of untidy but really cordial. There was a beige rug, sofas scattered around a grey television that was against a wall, supported by a small coffee table, dimmed lights were on the ceiling and shelves full of books and board games were against another wall. An Xbox and a Gamecube were, with a stack of DVDs, lying around and in front of the TV.

Pete let Gerard, Ray, Patrick, Frank and Joe enter the room before closing the door behind him.

''Here is my kingdom.'' he announced, designating the room with his opened arms. ''I pass around 6 hours per day here, playing video games and watching dumb zombie movies. What do you guys wanna do?'' Frank just let himself fall on a couch. Patrick was already all on four, in front of the television, trying to find an acceptable movie with Joe. Ray was leaning against the back of the sofa which Frank was all sprawled out on. Gerard just stood awkwardly besides the door, not figuring out what he should do and trying not to look too much at the bit of skin that was showing under Frank's wrinkled sweater.

Patrick just put a DVD in front of himself and looked at it for a moment before letting out ''Dude, Pete, what the frick is that?'' He held out the DVD over his shoulder so the rest of the guys could see it. It was called 'Zombie Strippers' and Jenna Jameson was featuring in the front, back to the camera in a pink bra and, oh god, it looked awesome but it'd be embarrassing if he got a boner. That'd be horrible.

''It's Jenna Jameson's finest art! And what the fuck? Are you gonna say frickle-frackle next or what? You sound like my grandma.''

Patrick went silent for a moment and then whispered ''Are they frickling frackling in this?'' and Gerard couldn't help but burst out of laughter, joined by the whole gang.

''We're so watching that, I don't even care if they're fucking or whatever, I just need to see this.'' Joe said, taking the movie out of Patrick's hand, opening the DVD player and inserting the disc in it. ''Pete, go get us food.'' Frank said, his voice muffled because his face was now in the sofa's cushion. He probably was pretty tired and Gerard really couldn't stand not looking at the skin strip he could see. There was a tattoo there and Gerard really would've liked to trace it with his fingertips.

''I'm not your fucking maid, go get it yourself.'' said Pete, opening the door. ''Come on guys, I'll probably need more than one set of hands.'' They all went up and made pop-corn. Gerard was going through Pete's family's cupboards searching for whatever he found could find and, after a moment of searching, he grabbed Oreos and chips, which he brought downstairs.

''Okay, so we're 6 and there's two sofas, so we'll have to squeeze in again.'' Ray said, entering the room first, a bowl full of pop-corn in his hands. Gerard really wasn't ready for this, especially if he had to squeeze in with Frank. Watching a stripper movie. This wasn't gonna end well.

Gerard dropped his ass on the nearest sofa, putting the chips on a small table that was at the end of the sofa and opening the pack of Oreos, prepared to eat his weight in those. Frank went besides him and Ray at the other end, and oh shit, oh shit, oh shit. Frank had his head on Gerard's arm and stole an Oreo or two from Gerard. The movie started with an hilarious news parody. Gerard laughed, acting like he didn't notice that he kind of had a really cute punk boy that laid his head on his shoulder and that smelled really good, like minty shampoo or something. Gerard couldn't help himself but take a whiff. Oh god, that was creepy.

Then, he felt something vibrate against his thigh. Holy fuck Frank was- oh no. It was his cellphone. Okay, that was dumb. He fidgeted a little bit against the sofa and Frank, then excused himself. ''Sorry, that's my phone. Could you put in on pause, Pete?'' Pete obeyed and Gerard retrieved his phone from his pocket, flipped it and answered.

''Who's that?

''Gerard, where the fuck are you?'' Oh shit, that was Mikey.

''Oh, dude, I'm at Pete's. I'm sorry, I missed the bus.

''Yeah, I noticed. Are you coming home for dinner? It's almost 6, you know.

''Oh, yeah, I'm coming. I'm gonna walk, Pete lives near from home. I should be here in half-an-hour max, okay?

''Okay.'' Mikey hung up.

''I'm sorry guys, I have to go.'' Gerard said and got up, pulling his pants up. He really should start wearing belts, but they were digging into his stomach fat and it wasn't as comfortable as his saggy pants.

''Why?'' Pete asked, raising his head from Patrick's laps. Gerard didn't notice first, but Patrick was placed at one end of the couch, while Pete was lying down, in the middle, his head on Patrick's laps and his knees bent. Joe was sitting on the other end, his back supported by Pete's knees and his legs over the couch's arm. It was a weird arrangement and Gerard asked himself how Pete and Joe could see, but it looked kind of sweet.

''My ma's not home and my brother's alone. I don't want him to be alone for supper, it'd suck for him, you know.

''Well, we can go get him. I don't care, we'll eat some junk for supper and we could get you guys back home at like 8 or something.

''Man, that sounds so sweet. I'll ask him.'' Gerard threw himself back on the couch, his thigh rubbing on Frank's, and searched in his contacts for Mikey. He selected it (it was one of his only contacts, so it didn't take long) and put the phone to his ear.

''What again?'' asked Mikey's monotone voice.

''Pete said you could totally just come here and eat with us.

''Who the fuck is Pete?'' asked Mikey, sounding kind of annoyed. Gerard growled and answered.

''Urgh, Mikey, he's my friend, I told you about him! Anyways, we're coming to get your ass here, so put on some pants!'' Gerard told him and hung up, without waiting for an answer. ''So, who's gonna get me there?'' Joe got up and took and opened the door.

''After you, my lady.'' and Gerard walked, waddling his ass, as if he was a woman wearing heels. It got a laugh from pretty much everyone and a whistle from Frank, which may or may not have made Gerard blush. They were such dorks.

Arriving to his house, Gerard just ran to his door, trying not to make Joe wait too much after him. He opened it without a warning and saw Mikey, in the kitchen, a spoonful of Nutella in his mouth. Mikey slowly turned around to look at Gerard, with the jar of Nutella still in his hand, looking sightly disturbed, judging by his raised eyebrow.

''Are you ready?''

Mikey gave him a 'do I fucking look ready to you' look, slowly chewed on the dark paste, looking kind of gross and drooling everywhere on his chin and putting the spoon carefully out of his mouth. He watched Gerard in the eyes through his glasses the whole time, making this even more disturbing than it should be.

''Mikey, hurry your ass up! Please, come to Pete's, he's awesome, you'll love him, I know it! Come on, I can't stay alone with those guys, I will mess up something.'' said Gerard, trying not to sound disturbed by this scene.

''Wow, calm your man-titties, dude. I was gonna come, it's okay.'' Mikey replied, sounding kind of weird because of the Nutella in the back of his throat, showing his darkened teeth. He threw the spoon in the sink, screwed the top of the jar back on, placed it on the counter and put on his trench coat ''What could you mess up anyway? You're a big boy, you can do this stuff yourself.'' he dropped himself on the floor to put his Doc Martens on.

''Mikey. There's a cute punk boy.

''Oh.'' Mikey replied, the corners of his mouth itching to go up, Gerard could feel it. Mikey opened the door and Gerard followed him. Gerard went past Mikey to go in the passenger's seat, letting Mikey sit alone, stretching his legs on the backseat and making himself comfortable.

''Mikey. You have Nutella on the corner of your mouth.'' Gerard informed him looking in the front mirror at his brother. Mikey growled and whipped off the Nutella with his jacket's sleeve. ''So, Joe, this is Mikey, Mikey, this is Joe.

''Hey, Mikey. Gerard was right, you look way cooler than him. Gerard, go home, I'm taking Mikey with us, you're not rad enough.'' Gerard was scared at first, because he dreaded this moment, but then understood that it was only a joke and burst out laughing nervously.

Coming home at 11 after spending a wonderful night filled with a torrent of junk food, dick jokes and zombie movies made Gerard pretty fucking happy. He didn't have to go to sleep early since it was Friday, so he went in the living room, watched a bad movie and fell asleep, feeling extremely content with himself.

Gerard was awoken by a noise. He looked around him trying to figure out where he was. He was confused, thirsty as fuck and couldn't feel his feet. He lift his upper body up on his arms, trying to reach his feet to rub his hands against them to feel them again, but the same noise made him blench, letting out a startled breath. He closed and opened his eyes several times and, when his view was clear, he figured out that his breath was making clouds again. Gerard actually was freezing.

He rolled off the sofa, fell on the floor face first, making a dull sound, and moaned at the pain. He must have broken a rib or something. Gerard raised himself, helping himself on his hands. Then, he moved his legs and tried to stand on his feet, holding himself on the sofa. He put his hands away from the sofa on both sides of his body, attempting to be up without any help. Not even being able to feel his feet made him fall on his ass, making more noise and making a dying whale sound. He rubbed the small of his back. God, there was going to be bruises there tomorrow. He poked at his feet and scrubbed them on the floor to make his blood circulate into them.

When he finally felt his feet again, Gerard got up and directed himself to the kitchen to get a glass of water. He looked outside the window for a moment and drank slowly. After several sips, he heard the fucking noise again. He dropped the glass, making a giant amount of noise, spilling water and broken glass everywhere, and started shaking. That was way too much. He was scared shitless and hurt and he felt like a bit of glass cut him. He was so fucking done with this home, the fucking creaking noises and the cold and he just wanted to go back in Monroe. He leaned against the counter and was about to cry, not even picking up the glass on the floor when he heard the sound again. It sounded like scratching nails on wood accompanied by a loud thumping and Gerard couldn't go to sleep until he knew what it was.

Gerard followed the sound. He believed it came from upstairs. He went up the stairs, trying not to fall because he could feel that his legs were about to give up. They were shaking and so was Gerard's breath.

Arriving at the first floor, he looked around. Mikey's room's door was closed and his mom's was open. He went through it and turned around the room. Nothing to be seen, only dirty plates, a big mirror, along with an undone bed, covered by flowered blankets and boxes.

He looked at the digital clock on his mom's bedside table. It was fucking 3:12. He had to go to sleep. He couldn't deal with this shit anymore. He went out of the room, closing the door behind him. He guided himself to his bedroom, about to open his door, when he heard the noise again. He turned around fast, eyes big with terror, looking for what might have done this sound. He was imagining a monster or Voldemort or something, but nothing. He went back on his steps, looked up and saw a trap on the ceiling. The noise was coming from the attic. It was probably vermin or something. He'd have to talk about this to his mom.

Gerard went in his room and let himself fall on his bed, falling asleep despite his shaking.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really hope you guys enjoy this chapter because I really did enjoy writing it! I feel way more confident in my story now and I just can see the plot taking shape and I'm so excited about it and I just find it so amazing to finally invest myself in something that I'm constructing myself.  
> Shout out to Evelyn, for being my beta and correcting my horrible frenchified syntax. Four for you, Evelyn, you go Evelyn!  
> Also, shout out to tea, coffee, sweet food, Fall Out Boy and my guitar. They were a big support.  
> I'll stop babbling now. Hope you enjoy!

Waking up, Gerard had difficulty to even open his eyes. He turned around in his bed, wrapping his covers tighter around him. He burrowed his face deep enough in his pillow that he touched his mattress with his nose. Then, Gerard turned around to look at the clock. It was 11 and he still felt exhausted.

Getting his head out of his blanket and pillow cocoon, Gerard could smell warm coffee and waffles. This kind of woke him up. He went to the bathroom before going in the kitchen, to check his face out. He didn't like was he was seeing.

His skin was incredibly pale. He was okay with it normally because it was absolutely cool to kind of look like a vampire, but right now the paleness of his skin didn't look as normal as usual. It looked kind of eerie and sick. His jaw had a purple and red bruise on it. His hair was fucking horrible, going everywhere in a greasy and raven black mess. He passed his hand through it, in an attempt to manage it. ''Fucking waste of time.'' he growled as he abandoned this task and went downstairs, and into the kitchen.

He was expecting to see his mother in her regular ''Cooking Bitch'' pink apron, making a delicious breakfast for her two sons, like the 50's mother she wasn't, but instead he saw Mikey in the said-apron, making waffles over the oven.

''Where the fuck's ma?'' Gerard mumbled, staring at Mikey in the kitchen's entrance. ''Good way to greet your brother who's cooking for you.'' replied Mikey. Gerard stared obliviously at him for a moment and his brother continued. ''She told us that she'd be working and shit during weekends.'' Gerard thought about that, motionless for a while, trying to dig deep into his memory to remember when their mom informed them, but gave up when he heard the doorbell ring.

He went to the door and opened it. A tall butchy man with large shoulders and a glorious beard was standing in front of him, a ladder over his shoulder and a yellow tool-box in the other hand. Gerard stared at him incredulously for a moment before the man announced ''I'm Ben... I'm here for, uh, renovation?'' Oh, yeah, renovations. Gerard was kind of slow before coffee.

''Yeah. Renovations.'' Gerard said, nodding slowly, half-asleep. There was a pause. Gerard stared at the man for a moment. Ben stared back at Gerard. Ben fidgeted awkwardly and asked ''So, may I come in?'' Gerard blinked and went out of his trance. ''Oh, hum, come in, yeah.'' He went on the side to get out of the way and let Ben come in. ''The basement is that way and... Yeah, hum, I have the plans in my room, I'll go get'em.'' He did and then guided Ben to the basement and approximately showed him how the room should be built.

After he stopped talking and an awkward silence started installing itself into the room, Gerard decided it was the great time for him to escape into the kitchen to finally take his daily cup (most likely cups) of coffee and a waffle out of the pan. He saw his food and drink already served on the counter, all warm and good smelling. Mikey served him his meal. That was lovely.

While he was eating at the table, Mikey came from his room upstairs to sit down with Gerard. He knew that Mikey was about to say something pretty important, but his brother preferred to steal him a sip of coffee. Mikey frowned and scrunched up his nose after drinking and announced blankly ''Your coffee's as black as your soul. And that's a crime.''

Gerard didn't even answer, his mouth full of waffle and cream, and waited for Mikey to spill the words, giving him an insistent look. Mikey looked back at him, raising an eyebrow all like 'What? Me? Something is troubling me? No way!' for a moment and then gave up. He sighed then said ''Okay, you know that one morning when you said that you were freezing?" Gerard nodded.

''Yeah, I kind of,'' he sighed again and paused before continuing, ''I felt it this morning, I guess it's not a problem that only happens in your room.

''I told you so, Mikey. This house's so old that it doesn't even keep heat, I hate it.'' Mikey didn't answer, looking down on the table.

  
After Ben went away, Gerard ran downstairs to look at the work.

Ben had finally constructed walls on the wood structures that were there before and repaired the electricity system. Gerard could see the walls of his bedroom and of a living room, blank, like canvas waiting to be painted. He had a big smile on his face. He was finally going to have his room downstairs, after a week of being in a lilac room with too much light! He was going upstairs, almost jumping on the steps, to get some dark paint to colour the walls of his future room but, when he passed through the kitchen, his cellphone buzzed on the dining table. He answered, kind of breathless.

''Who's it?"

''Gerard!'' a raspy and excited voice escaped from the phone. ''Guys, I found his number! Dude, tell us your address, we're coming to get you.'' It was Pete.

''What?! I'm still in PJ's man, I'm not ready. And where we goin'?

''Don't question, just act.'' he heard Bob's voice in the background, surrounded by laughter from some other guys. ''Tell us your address, now!'' Pete ordered.

''Hum, 32 Clement Street. But-'' Gerard started but he heard the other phone hang up. Goddammit. He ran up to his room, started rummaging through his clothes that were all scattered on the ground, smelling random pieces to find something clean. He knew he should have made a load before moving out.

He picked his favorite Iron Maiden hoodie, wore it on his Misfits shirt (he already wore it for at least two days, but nobody would see it, so he didn't care) and put on his favorite jeans. He showered yesterday morning, so he was still clean. He went in the bathroom to splash water in his face to wake himself up a little bit more. Gerard decided that he could wear eye-liner because it made him feel so much more badass. Just when he was done putting on socks, the bell rang, again.

He ran downstairs and looked through the little window mosaic that was on the door. Four people were on the other side of it: Ray, Bob, Patrick and Pete. He opened it, letting them in. Patrick entered the house first, looking around the ceiling, walls and rooms in awe. The others followed, not looking as much interested as him, except for Pete. ''Wait, you live in this house? Holy shit, I heard so many stories about it!" Patrick said, sounding kind of excited.

''Stories?'' Gerard was seriously intrigued and maybe a little scared.

''Yeah, when we were kids, nobody lived here. Every kid here made up some stories about ghosts, and spirits, and demons haunting this house. Pete and I rode here on our bikes in the evening to see if we could actually see ghosts through the windows. Oh man, every kid in the neighborhood was so scared of this house. It isn't that spooky on the inside, though."

''Ghosts?!'' Gerard asked, wide-eyed, when he sat on the floor to tie his shoes. This couldn't get any worse.

''We were like, 10, we just imagined that, no ghosts are gonna haunt your ass here, it's okay dude.'' Pete said, squatting to Gerard's height to tap Gerard's shoulder. Yeah, calm down, Gerard. He tried to ignore his heart that was actually pumping faster than normally. ''Okay, hurry up,'' Pete stood up ''the others are waiting in the van."

''The van?!'' Gerard asked, mid-way in tying his converses.

''Yeah. My van.'' replied Bob, standing next to Gerard.

Gerard saw Mikey coming downstairs from his room and his spectacled eyes opening when he saw the gang in front of the door. He went to give Pete a sort of dumb-looking and over-complicated handshake

''Hey, Pete! What are you guys doing here?"

''Oh, you know, just kidnapping your brother, the usual stuff. Wanna be taken too?"

''Hell yeah.'' Gerard was about to get up after finishing lacing his shoes then said. ''Wait, why can't we just all hang out here? I have to paint my walls and stuff."

''Okay, we'll call the others in!" Ray announced. Gerard nodded before realizing that Pete also mentioned other people before. He almost screamed, in distress ''The others?!''

Pete and Patrick laughed, while Bob simply smiled and said ''I have a van. We were like eight in there. There's Frank, Gabe, Joe and Andy waiting in there.'' Gerard was astonished that someone could fit that many people in a car. ''I'll call them over.'' Bob stepped outside, closed the door behind him and Gerard could clearly hear Bob yelling ''Come here, you dipshits! We got a place to hang out!'' He thought it wasn't really calling someone over but more like yelling like an angry mom.

Seconds later, an avalanche of teenage boys crowded Gerard's entrance hall. There were handshakes, greetings, douchey bro-hugs (Gabe's specialty) and fist bumping going around Gerard and he just returned whatever anybody did to him.

Gerard was kind of stressed having all of those people around him but he just tried to shake it off. They were his friends now, right? Nothing bad could happen. He then saw Frank un-tying his shoes, leaning in front of him, letting his shirt ride on his back to uncover the tattoo that Gerard had seen that one time at Pete's and Gerard thought that it maybe falling in love would be the worst that could happen.

And that was pretty fucking horrible.

 

They all were in the basement, making dirty jokes and painting Gerard's walls when Frank asked Gerard ''So, after a week, how's school for you?'' He was trying to paint the upper parts of the walls, but he was too small and Gabe always had to fill in those parts (Gerard had to tell Gabe several times to stop painting penises instead of filling the empty space). ''I don't know, I met a gang of assholes and they always invade my basement during weekends and they always end up stealing me some coffee or Coke.'' Gerard replied, smiling at Frank. The gang laughed.

Pete elbowed Mikey that was painting besides him and asked ''What about you, Mikeyway?

''Not much, I don't know. I met this gang that are freshies too and they're pretty rad. Except for the times one of them gets detention for wearing too much makeup and then bitches about it for the whole day."

''Oh my god, Mikey, I think you know Pete's minions!'' Patrick exclaimed himself.

''Are you talking about Ryan and shit?"

''Yeah, you know them?''

''They're like, my whores or something.'' Pete bragged. They proceeded to talk about them for a moment and drifted the subject to talk about some random girl who was in Mikey's class. Gerard had no idea who it was and it looked like Andy didn't either. And so he asked who she was. Joe, that was sitting on the floor and painting besides him replied ''You know! The girl who tried to pierce her belly button at her grandma's but only made a sort of hole in her skin and-"

''Oh yeah! And then she glued a candy to it to make it look like she really did pierce it! Oh my god, I heard from Lyn-Z that it was all infected and gross. She saw it and almost threw up, she told me.'' Gabe continued, cheerful from telling the deliciously disgusting story.

''What the fuck even is this fucking school?'' whispered Gerard drearily. ''And who is Lyn-z?'' he said louder, trying to hide the glint of jealousy in his voice.

''She's pretty rad.'' Ray answered.

''She once got suspended because she ran in the hallways in a bra.'' Bob added. ''I think Kitty stole her shirt or something.''

And, just to turn the knife in the wound, Frank decided to announce too ''She has an awesome taste in music. She's into punk, industrial and is a pretty big Bikini Kill fan. She's kind of pretty, I think, too.''

Okay, Gerard never stood a chance.

 

It was Monday and 7 o'clock. Gerard didn't want to accept the hard reality that was showing itself on his digital clock. He stared at the red numbers for a moment before rolling on his back to stare at the ceiling. He didn't want to fucking go to fucking school. He probably still had bruises on his face from the confrontation he had with Rick, Greg and Dough. They'd probably be there and there probably would be other people there to mock him and he was so tired and felt like utter shit. The light that was coming out of his window was dark. But he wanted to see his friends. And Frank.

So he got up.

He went to the bathroom mirror and took a look at his face. The bruise that had been on his jaw was purple and yellow now and his dark circles were so intense that it looked like his eyes were trying to sink in his brain.

He didn't shower or do anything with his makeup, he felt as if the mess that was his face and himself didn't deserve it. He was about to start fixing his hair a little bit when he heard a noise. It was like someone was stomping on the ceiling, right above him. He stared at the ceiling, trying to figure out where the noise came from. ''Mikey?'' he asked, loud enough for Mikey to hear it from where ever he was in the house. ''Yeah?'' a whiny voice replied, apparently coming from the kitchen. So it wasn't Mikey who made that noise. Probably they had rats in this fucking house. And a bad air conditioning. Fucking shit-hole. ''S'nothing, just wanted to be sure you were awake.'' Gerard lied, not to make the conversation too weird.

He proceeded to wash his hands and hold them to his face, splashing some water on it, to wake himself up some more. Gerard's hands were kind of cold, now that he thought about it. He pulled them from his face and looked at them: frost was forming on his nails. He looked at himself in the mirror and his lashes were becoming white with ice and his face was sparkly with frost.

The corners of the mirror were covered with frost and ice, too. It was slowly starting to cover the entirety of the glass, making Gerard unable to see himself behind the layer of ice that was on it. He slowly put his hand to the mirror. It was freezing, but Gerard didn't remove it from the mirror, trying to make the ice melt down to see something in the glass.

He indeed saw something.

His eyes widened in horror: he saw something move behind him, a shadow, he was sure. He blinked and there was nothing anymore. He looked behind him, but the figure wasn't there. He went back to his room, trembling, to put on an Iron Maiden hoodie. Gerard's legs shook so much that he had to sit down on his bed after this. He could hear his breath, loud and irregular. He exhaled noisily and took a look at his hands. They were shaking. He started whimpering.

He took his head between his hands, trying to shake the fear away by making a mess out of his hair, pulling on it, scratching his scalp until he actually felt like it was bleeding. When he couldn't feel anything but a burning feeling on his scalp and his nails were covered with dead skin, Gerard pulled his hair and tried to scream, only making a chocked and high sob. He then put his pillow to his face and screamed into it, the loudest he could, until it felt all wet from humidity, saliva, cold sweat and tears.

Mikey walked hurriedly into his room. Even if he always looked like he didn't care, Mikey cared about a lot of things, especially his brother. He went on his knees, and pulled the pillow away from Gerard's face. ''What's going on, Gee? Are you okay?'' he pulled him closer on his chest, making hushing and soothing sounds. He put his forehead to Gerard's, stealing a glance ''What's going on? Stop panicking, there's nothing, everything's good. Ma's not here but it's okay. Wanna stay home?'' and at those last words Gerard violently shook his head no.

Gerard put his head back on Mikey's chest, feeling his pointy chin on the top of his head and took a moment to catch his breath. ''Mikey, those aren't some fucking rats. Something's happening, I'm fucking telling you.'' His brother looked at him, puzzled. ''The fuck, Gee? What're you talking about?'' Gerard unstuck himself from his brother.

''I saw something in the bathroom. Everything fucking froze and there was a noise and something in the mirror, fuck, I'm telling you, Mikey!'' Mikey looked at him, his eyebrows creased like when he was worried, and said ''It was nothing, okay, just. Just, y'know, rats and bad air conditioning. It's. Just come drink a coffee. We have to go to school.''

 

''Jesus, it smells like shit in here.''

Gerard was in English class with Ray and Patrick. They had to do an assignment in small groups and they were all together. Patrick went to the bathroom not so long ago and Gerard just interrupted his narrative about what happened this morning to scrunch his nose and look around the room.

''It's because you're in the room.'' Ray replied.

''You assdick, it actually smells like crap, man."

''Holy shit, it's true.'' said Ray, after sniffing around. Gerard wasn't going to continue his story-telling until he found out where the smell came from and Ray probably agreed, Gerard decided.

He tried sniffing his clothing but they didn't smell that bad, actually. Gerard could maybe use of a shower, but it wasn't that bad. Ray imitated him, smelling his armpits, and shrugged. Then, Gerard got up and opened the windows, trying to make the odor go away. It still didn't go away, but Gerard started getting used to it and decided that he should continue telling Ray what happened this morning, because it was fucked up and he wanted to find support.

After a few seconds (and words), Patrick came in and interrupted Gerard's story, sounding kind of tired of Ray and Gerard's shit. ''Why in the heck is there water on my desk?'' They both turned around, looking at Patrick's desk. There were some drops of water, nothing big, on it. ''Must be someone's water bottle that dripped, I don't know man.'' Gerard replied, kind of irritated. He just wanted to tell his fucking story to his friends, man.

Patrick sat down with them and Gerard started his story about how he heard a noise coming from the ceiling this morning all over again and, just when he was coming to the interesting part, Patrick put a hand on his head, startled, ''Okay, I just had a water on my head, what is this?'' They looked up at the ceiling and saw a dark spot of dirty water on it.

''Holy fuck, I think the bathroom upstairs is having some... problems?'' Ray announced, quite hesitantly.

''Do you mean... Is that some pee falling on me?! That's fucking disgusting!'' Patrick shouted, jumping out of his chair. Gerard looked at Patrick going to the teacher and telling her about it and he felt kind of angry. Could he just fucking tell his story already?! He didn't fucking care about the stupid toilet and its fucking contents spraying every where. As long as it wasn't on him, he was o-fucking-kay with it. The students around Patrick and the teacher heard what was happening and, within seconds, the whole class went to shit.

Everyone tried to go to see from where the water came from. Everybody talked and expressed their disgust or their intrigue, some even laughing at Patrick, Ray and Gerard. The teacher had to tell them to go back to their desks and shut up so she could call the secretary's office and ask for the janitor to help clean it up and fix it.

Gerard slowly back to his place, sighing loudly. He bashed his head on his desk. High school really wasn't the right place to tell people about your feelings.

 

The cafeteria was particularly calm today. Maybe it was the dark outside, maybe it was some exams or maybe it was because it was Monday. Nevertheless, Gerard loved it. This lunch, his plan was to tell his friends about what happened that morning and to find out what was happening or find help.

He sat at the end of the table with Frank and he kept smiling at him and bumping knees accidentally. They talked a little bit together and laughed too. It was fun because it was kind of like they had their own little bubble that no-one could pop, not even a fire-shooting dragon.

He heard Ray speak to the guys and decided to listen to him, since he kind of ran out of subjects to talk about to Frank and he didn't want to say anything awkward to him. ''I'm telling you, dudes, the ceiling's fucking dripping!

''Why didn't you bring an umbrella?'' answered Pete, laughing at his own joke.

''Very funny, Wentz. Anyways, what about your classes?

''The music teacher went on a Breakfast Club-ing spree. She made four people actually have to come this Friday during the day off to study.'' said Joe. ''I swear to god, Mrs. Kirsch is a fucking insane woman.

''Why did she do that?'' asked Patrick, after swallowing his mouthful of ham sandwich.

''Because they didn't bring reference pictures.'' Joe replied, sounding totally unimpressed.

''Welcome to Belleville High.'' Bob added, making the whole table laugh.

Pete then turned himself on his chair to Gerard and asked ''Hey, Gerard, you don't seem well. Are you okay?'' Gerard decided it was time to tell the guys about what happened this morning. Everybody listened thoroughly to the whole story without interrupting (like in English, this morning) and, when Gerard was done, they all looked intrigued and, or frightened.

''Dude, that's fucking creepy.'' said Bob. ''Don't fuck around about this, just do an exorcism or something, you just don't shit with the Devil.

''You're dumb, Bob, it's not spirits or ghosts or Lucifer, man, maybe it's just-"

''Bad air conditioning, rats and hallucinations?'' Gerard ended Patrick's sentence, all miserable and hunched over the table.

''Or Bob's mom.'' said Pete, still joking, in spite of the gravity of the situation. Some laughed nervously.

They ate slowly, not talking, only thinking and, to break the thoughtful silence that he hated, Andy asked ''So, what are we doing for Halloween? And are we doing something this week-end? We have Friday off, we should do something out of it."

''I thought about going trick or treating again?'' answered Frank. Gerard thought that people surely wanted to give candies to Frank; he looked like he was 11 or a cute puppy or something.

''You really wanna spend your 17th birthday trick or treating, man?'' Pete asked, sounding kind of disappointed. ''I could bring you to see the strippers, son.'' he continued, making his best impression of a father.

Wait. That meant that Frank was born on Halloween. That was simply and purely awesome and Gerard loved Frank even more for that. ''Fuck yeah I want. It will be us, Gabe, your weird-ass minions and Gee's brother. After, it'll be my house, candies and horror movies."

''Sounds good to me.'' Ray answered and everyone agreed. It would be one of the first times Gerard spent Halloween with anyone else than his brother. It'll be awesome. Andy remarked ''Halloween is all good, but what do we do Friday? I don't wanna spend this weekend doing nothing, y'know.'' Everyone thought about this for a moment and Patrick replied, quite unsure ''We could go to the mall? Jon started working at the Starbucks at the end of the summer, we should show him some support."

''We're not 12 year old girls, Patty! Do you wanna go to the Senza and buy assorted AA cups bras and panties?'' Pete answered, laughing.

''Shut up, dickhead. And I told you not to call me like that!'' Patrick hissed, jamming his elbow into Pete's rib, resulting him into chocking on his laughter.

''Pete, stop being an ass, I think Patrick is right. We should go there, instead of staying in our basements like the losers we are.'' Joe replied. ''Sounds fun.'' Frank added, looking at Gerard for agreement. ''Yeah, I've never been to the mall.'' Gerard responded.

''We should go to Pete's or something after. Sleepover you know.'' Ray added. ''We could rent a movie or something.''

Well, Gerard was booked for the weekend.

 

That night, Gerard's mom was home. She helped him get his stuff from his room to downstairs and place everything perfectly. Donna also cooked the first decent meal Gerard had had in days and announced her sons that she still won't be able to be home much.

Gerard didn't mention her about the weird stuff that was going on in there.

 

Waking up on Wednesday, Gerard knew that the day was going to be fucking shitty. He couldn't fall asleep until 3 the night before so he was extremely tired and unattractive. His reflection in the mirror showed a dark circled Gerard with a green and yellow bruise on the jaw. He didn't even bother doing anything other than taking a cold shower to wake himself up.

Arriving in math class, he noticed that he didn't do his homework and he tried to do his best to do it before the teacher showed up to his desk to see if he did the assignment but he was too slow. Mr. Rivers grinned under his creepy mustache and wrote in his notebook while saying to Gerard ''Looks like Mr. Way was too busy being artsy to actually do his homework? Looks like you'll have another tête-à-tête with Mrs. Flinch, you lucky boy.''

Gerard had to make his best not to bash his head incredibly hard on his desk.

He shared french class with Ray and Gerard told him about his detention. ''Don't worry dude, I'll be there for you.'' and, right after, when the teacher asked to see their homework, Ray let out a ''Je suis désolé, madame, je n'ai pas. Hum. Fait mon devoir.'' with a thick American accent while shoving hypocritically his essay in his desk. Ray was the best dude ever.

''Vous m'étonnez, monsieur Toro. Je suis désolée mais, je vais alors devoir vous donner une retenue.'' Mrs. Beaulieux replied, sounding sorry and kind of disappointed. Ray was a good student and it was rare that he didn't actually do his homework.

Mrs. Flinch was still watching a series on her computer when Gerard and Ray handed her their detention tickets. They sat at the back of the room and pretended they were writing their copy. They talked about nothing and everything until Gerard awkwardly asked ''So, hum, do any of you guys have girlfriends or something?''. He kind wanted to know about Frank. Not that he actually wanted to go out with Frank only because, hum, he wanted to know more about him. Yeah.

Ray blushed and giggled awkwardly ''Nah, man, girls aren't really chasing us, you know?

''What about Frank?'' Gerard asked hurriedly and, fuck, that was suspicious.

''Hum, let's say that girls aren't really his thing.'' answered Ray, with a small smile, only looking at his copy. Gerard whispered a small ''Oh.'' Okay, maybe he did have a chance. A very small one, like, 0.00001% of the third of a chance, but it was still a chance. ''What about you?'' asked Ray, finally looking at Gerard.

''Have you seen me?'' Gerard laughed ''No, I don't.'' Maybe he should tell Ray about his not being straight. Yeah, okay. ''To be honest, actually,'' Gerard shifted in his seat and cleared his throat ''girls aren't really my thing either.'' He looked at his hands. He hoped Ray was okay with it.

''Man, everyone in my gang is fucking gay or something, Jesus fucking Christ.'' Ray said and started laughing.

Okay, Ray really was the best dude ever.

 

His last class was PE or, as Gerard liked to call it, public embarrassment. He changed in one of the little cubicles that were in the lockers room. Nobody would notice him. He waited until everyone was gone from the room to get out, in this ugly shorts and shirt kit that the school offered.

He went into the gym, shoes scraping the dirty floor, seeming suddenly heavier than normally. The gym was full and the teacher was already telling instructions to the class when Gerard came in. He sat down on the bleachers with everyone else and, fuck, the teacher just ordered them to run.

He started slowly, trying not to spend all of his energy on the first minute and, after three minutes, he had enough. The teacher then commanded them to start doing squats and Gerard asked him breathlessly to go to the bathroom. Mr. Walls allowed him and Gerard walked the faster his body would allow to the bathroom. He locked himself into a stall and decided he would stay there for the whole class.

Sitting on the toilet seat for a complete hour seemed easy but, without any cigarettes or comics to read, it started to get kind of boring. He picked at his nail polish and started unrolling the toilet paper out of boredom, which was the logical thing to do, when he heard someone coming into the bathroom. Shit.

He pulled his feet on the toilet seat so nobody would acknowledge his presence. He heard the voices of two boys. ''...so, you know, she just blew him. What a fucking slut.

''Yeah totally.'' Fuck. It was Rick Hagan and Greg Owens. Okay, he had to not panic and just hope that they wouldn't notice that he was there. He fidgeted on the seat, trying to place the toilet paper back on the dispenser. He felt his elbow touch something and, fuck his fucking life, it was the flush handle. The loud flushing noise filled the room. Gerard's life was _so_ over.

''What the fuck was that?'' Greg asked with his dull voice. ''Hey, do you remember who got out of class when he was too much of a pussy to actually exercise?'' Rick banged on Gerard's door. ''It was our little Gee boy.'' Gerard stared at the door with horror. Why was he such a fucking dumbass?

''C'mon, don't be shy, Geeny, we won't hurt you.'' Gerard heard another loud bang on his door. ''Come on, man.'' Greg whispered aggressively, hitting on the door with both of his fists. Gerard didn't show any sign of life, hoping that these assholes would go away.

''Okay, you seem hard to deal with, pansy. Look, if you open the door, we won't tell anybody about you being here. If you don't, we'll fucking tell Mr. Wall and you bet your faggot ass that he'll make you clean the locker's room after football practice and, fag, we ain't some good smellin' dudes.'' Gerard heard the two idiots laugh and, fuck, he didn't want to be stuck doing that. He put his feet back down on the floor, rose on them and unlocked the door slowly.

As soon as the door was unlocked, Rick opened it abruptly and grabbed him by the collar. ''You fucking dumb ass, you believed me didn't you? Every fag in this fucking school is like you. Like this fucking Iero kid. You like sucking his dick, poof?'' And oh fuck, he talked about Frank right there. Gerard felt his stomach getting cold and rage pump through his ears. He was fucking terrified but was also extremely angry. ''He likes getting his faggot ass beat up, doesn't he, Greg?'' Greg laughed as an agreement. Gerard kicked Rick's shin and tried to escape from his strong grip but, it only ended up as Rick slapping him hard on his bruise. ''Fucking ow!'' Gerard spat out, putting his hands on Rick's shoulders to try to get him off.

Greg appeared behind his back, taking his arms to put them at his back, trying to twist them at the angle that could hurt Gerard the most. Gerard cried in pain and Rick grabbed his chin, to make Gerard stare at him. ''Looks like you didn't understand the fact that you shouldn't fuck with us, isn't it? You thought we didn't see you with your fucking faggot gang? If you fucking disrespect us again, we'll make you fucking pay, you and your pansy friends.''

Gerard spat at his face and Rick growled ''Fuckin' enough!'' and pulled on his hair, guiding him into a stall. Greg laughed, still holding tight on Gerard's arms. They ignored Gerard's complains and his whines of pain. Rick held Gerard head forward and kicked at the back of his knees to make him kneel in front of the toilet. Shit, no, this wasn't fucking happening, this wasn't-

Gerard's head was pushed into the toilet bowl, water going in his mouth, his nose and his eyes. He flailed his arms around, trying to push himself out of the cabinet in vain. He could hear Greg and Rick laughing and telling him profanities. He could also hear the dull noises his hands made when the clapped against the linoleum floor. He then felt a sharp tug on his hair that made his head out of the water for a second before being pushed back in. He stayed was in that position for a while, thinking that he'd drown in a fucking toilet anytime, when he heard the bell ring. Rick pulled on his hair again to get Gerard's face out of the toilet and to whisper ''If you fucking fuck with us again, you're a dead pussy.'' before running out of the toilet.

Gerard stayed like that, kneeling in front of the toilet, water dripping from his hair and nose, catching his breath and arms hanging on his sides for a moment. He wanted to cry. He felt humiliated and dirty and he was sure he got an STD from the toilet seat. He got up, got out of the stall and opened the tap. He rinsed his face and tried to go underneath the dryer to dry the most of the water he had on it (the school didn't furnish that sort of scratchy brown paper for whatever reason).  
When he got out of the bathroom, he only had five minutes left to go take his bus. He hurriedly changed himself and ran downstairs to grab his bag and everything he needed to do his homework.

On the bus ride back from school, Gerard almost didn't talk to Mikey, only put his head on his brother's shoulder and refrained himself from crying.

 

When he got back home, he ran downstairs into his room and he let himself fall on his bed, he wrapped himself in all the bed sheets he could find and tried to make himself as small as possible by stretching his knees the closest he could to his chest into a fetal position. He heard Mikey come into his room.

''I want to drown in a sea of blankets.'' whined Gerard. And he actually kind of really did. Dying in blankets would be pretty cool actually, like being molested by clouds. He'd pretty much prefer to do anything than to have to go back to school again.

Gerard heard Mikey snicker and put 'How Soon Is Now?' on Gerard's stereo. Gerard then heard Mikey shift around and sit, in silence, at the end of Gerard's bed, elbows on his knees. He didn't move and was silent for a moment and, then, straightened his back and sang along to Morrissey.

''...And you go home, and you cry, and you want to die...''. He looked at Gerard head that was buried under the bed clothes with a smile (well, what Mikey could have of a smile) and Gerard extracted his hand off the blankets with difficulty to flip him off. Mikey lift the corner of his mouth in a small grin and lay on his back besides Gerard. Gerard's back was to him but he could imagine Mikey looking at the ceiling, with his dorky glasses and his mouth half-open, arms crossed under his head.

They listened to the record for a moment, with the only other sound being Gerard's blankets crunching when he shifted a little. Then when 'Meat is Murder' stopped and the album restarted at the first track, Gerard turned around so he had his face on his brother's side. Mikey always smelled good, like home, coffee and the weird pumpkin spray that his mother vaporized everywhere since God-knows-when and it made Gerard feel somewhat better. He closed his eyes to help him remember when Mikey and him were kids whose only worries were if they had Star Wars plastic light sabers for Christmas.

''You should make him a mix-tape with 'Meat is Murder' on it for his birthday.'' Mikey whispered. Gerard opened his eyes and looked up to Mikey, surprised of the sudden interaction.

''What?'' Gerard let out, all surprised, like he didn't know what Mikey was talking about. Mikey always knew everything. Stupid little brothers and their infinite knowledge of your private life.

''Frank. Make him a mix-tape for his birthday. Be all cute and shit so he'll want to get in your pants.'' Mikey said, rolling is eyes, making Gerard feel dumb to try to hide his huge, embarrassing crush on Frank.

''Michael James Way, how did you learn that naughty language?'' Gerard lifted his chin to look at Mikey's face, a smile starting to form on his face.

''You taught it to me, you dipshit.''

Gerard made that sort of giggle-snort-honk that he only did with Mikey because, wow, embarrassing. If Frank heard it, he'd probably abandon him and leave him for, he didn't know, Pete or something. But then, it was only if Frank liked him. And he most probably didn't because, well, Gerard was himself and Gerard would be disgusted too to see himself and would most likely ditch himself because he was a total loser. ''Yeah, maybe I should. But why should I put 'Meat is Murder'? Why not 'I Want The One I Can't Have'?"

"Because you don't want to sound like a desperate loser and because Frank's vegan. The guys said it to me. Well, Pete did.

"Since when did you become one of us?'' Gerard asked with a smile.

''Since you kind of dragged me to Pete's house and you made me talk with these dorks.''

Oh well, he was right. They were relaxing in a comfortable silence, only broke by Morrissey's voice while Gerard started to think about which songs he should put on his mix-tape. Probably a lot of Misfits songs. And Black Flag. He wondered if Frank liked Bowie. Well, Frank was perfect so he must like him. Gerard was kind of day dreaming when, suddenly, a dull sound rung out. Mikey straightened his back fast and Gerard kind of wobbled on the bed, trying to undo the blankets around him but the only result was him hitting the wall on the side of the bed really hard. Like, ouch.

Mikey swiftly got out of bed to check out what happened. The sound was coming out of the living room, upstairs.  
''I told you man, this house is fucking creepy, I swear to God it is haunted, Patrick told me that.'' Gerard screamed from his room. He heard Mikey's fast steps come down the stairs and saw his unimpressed brother come back into his room with a glazed rat.

''You're just a pussy, there's nothing, it's just one of Grandpa's animal stuck in resin that fell. Maybe it's not dead yet. Or maybe its spirit came to haunt your ass, booh-ooh.'' replied Mikey ''My spirit came back from the dead to haunt your ass.'' He made this weird ghost-like voice and moved the little frozen rat to make it look like a flying entity. What an ass.

But then, one of Gerard's Pro-Markers dropped on the floor. Then two. And three. And then, all of his markers were on the floor, with no one touching them.

''Okay, this is just creepy and I'm way too tired to even care.'' let out Mikey, sounding a little breathless (could Gerard's brother show any sign of emotions? Surprise? Fear?). Gerard just looked at the crayons with big eyes, his eyelashes touching his brow-bone. What the fuck just happened?! What was that for?

''I told you man, fucking haunted.'' were Gerard's only words, not moving his eyes from the markers, only moving his mouth, nearly whispering because he was too petrified to even move his face. Mikey slowly picked up the pencils, put them back on Gerard's messy desk and decided that it was enough The Smiths for the night, turning off the stereo and retrieving his album.

''Ma's not going to be here tonight, we're stuck with that ghost.'' said Mikey, half-joking, because, man , who knew who or what just did this? ''I'm making Kraft Dinner.'' He then went upstairs. Gerard untangled his limbs from the blankets and stared for a moment at the square of floor where his markers were seconds ago. He hurried himself upstairs. Nothing could make Gerard run, but that shit kind of made him want to. But he didn't. Don't show that your scared. Even if it's a ghost, or a demon, or a rat from hell.

Surprisingly, Gerard didn't make that much noise while coming upstairs like a gorilla and Mikey didn't notice him in the door frame, so Gerard stared at him a little. Gerard liked to watch people when they didn't notice someone was around, because they were so calm and could be pretty weird and oh god, Gerard was a total creeper.

He stared at his brother for a moment. Mikey was standing in front of the counter top, arms stiff, palms heavily rested on the ugly cold tile. Mikey didn't even start making Kraft Diner. The blue box was standing there, near of his left hand. He was staring at his hands silently, then lifted up his chin to watch where the wall collided with the ceiling and let out, with his mouth and Adam's apple moving really slowly, ''What the fuck.'' Gerard felt the same.

He then went in the kitchen, turned his brother's shoulders and hugged him. He knew how Mikey looked like when he was scared and he looked like that at this exact moment, the way his eyebrows were higher than normally and his eyes were glassy. Gerard pet the back of his neck and whispered in the crook of his neck ''It's gonna be okay, Mikey, everything is okay.''

That was probably to convince himself too.

 

That night, Gerard climbed into his brother's bed in the middle of the night. Mikey was on his back, wide-eyed, staring at the ceiling. Gerard was on his side, looking at Mikey for some time. They didn't speak. Sometimes, silence can be way more meaningful than words, Gerard told himself. And that silence was an 'I'm scared shitless' silence.  
Gerard buried his head in Mikey's pillow, puffing in hair-gel, coffee, cold and his mom's girly soap.

 

Gerard had a free block Thursday morning and he decided to use his time well by going in the backyard to smoke. He took his backpack nonchalantly on his shoulder and dragged himself out off one of the backdoors.

Outside was cold, dark and wet. The backyard was a giant plain with trees only on the limits. The rest was only fresh grass with little rain droplets or dew, lunch tables, basket-ball fields and soccer grounds. Gerard tightened his jacket around him and was walking towards the several lunch tables that were scattered around the court, looking down. He was imagining that, since he didn't have any homework, he would text Mikey, even if he was in class. The guy was subtle.

A whirlwind of leaves flew in front of Gerard and he looked up to gaze at the red and orange wind. Behind it, he saw the table he was planning sitting on, but a small silhouette was on it. He squinted his eyes to take a better look at it.

It was Frank. He was sitting on the table and had his feet on the bench. His elbows were on his knees and his tattooed hands held his face, more pink than usual because of the cold. Gerard noticed that his face was also glowing. But, it wasn't sparkle, it was tears. Gerard walked faster towards him.

''Hey, Frank? What's wrong?'' he asked, dropping his bag in the grass (fuck it if it got all wet and muddy, his friend needed his help). He sat on the the table, like Frank, and crossed his arms on his knees.

''Oh, Gee'' Frank said, turning his face around, rubbing his knuckle on his nose to wipe some snot, making his nose piercing glow in the hazy sunlight. ''I'm sorry, man, it's just... My dog died yesterday and it's just hard you know? I love dogs and she was the best.'' His eyes were red and so were his cheeks. ''Aren't you supposed to be in class?

''Nope, free block. But, are you okay? Well, I guess you're not but, hum, do you need help or anything? Is there anything I could do?"

''No, it's okay. I just wanna'' Frank let his head drop on Gerard's shoulder ''rest here.'' He was sniffling and making silent sobs, that Gerard couldn't have known existed if he didn't feel them vibrate against his side. Nobody was around and a light rain started falling on their heads.

Gerard wrapped his arm around Frank's shoulders, letting him bury his face in Gerard's shirt. He felt Frank's heavy breath against his chest and tears going through his shirt. Gerard thought that it was okay if he put his nose in Frank's hair now, because he couldn't keep looking at Frank like that, sobbing and all sad. It was a torture.

Gerard buried his nose in Frank's hair, smelling minty shampoo and tobacco. He closed his eyes and put his other hand around Frank's waist, hesitantly. Frank didn't back off and moved his ass closer to Gerard's, which was a good sign. Frank put his arms around Gerard, hugging him tighter. After a moment, he felt Frank's breath get steadier and, eventually, didn't hear sobs anymore. Only Frank breathing calmly into his jacket, all warm and soft and his. Gerard tightened his grip on Frank's back, making him let out a cute, sleepy moan, and patted his back. He put his mouth lower, to be to Frank's ear, and whispered ''It's okay, Frankie. Everything is okay. It's okay to cry, everybody needs to.'' He couldn't think of anything better, and he could have, but he kind of had a cute moaning punk boy in his arms.

He felt Frank's face shift a little on his chest and lift his chin to look into Gerard's eyes. They stayed there a moment, looking at each other, in silence, without moving, Frank's hand curled into Gerard's black jacket, mouth half-opened and his lip piercing looking so temping to touch. Then, Frank looked down, on the tear blotch he made in Gerard's jacket, and he said, all sleepy and calm and giggling ''Oh, man, sorry for that.''

He didn't need to excuse himself. Gerard just really didn't care. Frank could have killed both of Gerard's parents right now and that would have been alright, as long as he stayed at his side. ''It's okay.'' said Gerard softly, still looking at Frank like he was one of the Seven Wonders. And he could have been, with his soft and pale skin, his blossom pink cheeks, his shiny lips, his green and hazel eyes, his jet-black hair and his piercings that were shining under the dim light. He couldn't resist the temptation anymore and he put his thumb on Frank's piercing, cupping his face and looking into his eyes. ''It's okay.'' he repeated.

''Thanks. I really needed this. I love you, man.'' Frank said, wiping his eyes, and unsticking himself from Gerard. Gerard really wished the ''I love you'' was in another way, but it still made him warm and all butterfly-ish in his stomach. ''I need to go, I'm sorry, I was skipping class, I'll need to be there for the next period. By the way, you smell like a fucking girl.'' Frank continued, giggling. He grabbed his own bag and started walking off, walking backwards to wave Gerard for a moment and disappeared into the school.

This was going to become a problem.

 

''We didn't want to be his friend, but then, he made an awesome Gollum impersonation so we kind of decided to give him a chance, y'know.'' Ryan giggled. It was the after school band practice. It wasn't anything really coordinated, only the music class opened to everyone and some students asked the music teacher for advice on how they should play that one rhythm and if there was an easier way to play that one strumming pattern without screwing it up. Gerard was with his usual gang of friends and Ryan, Brendon, Spencer and Jon.

They didn't wear their usual 'circus-freak' uniforms (''It's been two weeks since we're in detention non-stop so we kind of gave up... Ryan still wears makeup though, because he's a pansy.'' laughed Brendon earlier to Gerard) and, at first, Gerard thought they looked kind of mean, but they actually were the funniest things. Some were sitting on the floor, some on chairs and Brendon was even cuddled up against Pete, after being pushed down by Ryan.

''What's smelling that good?'' Brendon suddenly asked. He started sniffing around, like a weird sort of dog, to end up nose on Ryan's shoulder. ''Dude, you smell good. What's that?"

''I don't know? I put on my sister's deodorant today since I couldn't find mine.''

There was a long silence and Spencer whispered, breaking it ''You smell like a slut.'' The guys all laughed and Pete asked ''Jon, is it okay if we come bugging you at your job tomorrow or something?'' Jon turned his eyes from his bass and answered ''As long as you don't try to put your fucking feet on the table again, it's alright.'' Pete started laughing and went to Jon, playing in his hair ''I won't, JWalk, you know I love you too dearly for this."

''You didn't love me that much two weeks ago, it seems."

"Shhh.''

Gerard kind of spaced out and looked at Frank practicing guitar. It was electric and it wasn't connected to any amp but, even like this, he was pretty fucking good. Frank was apparently playing 'Die Die My Darling' by the Misfits, judging by the music sheet he had in front of him.

He stared at him for a moment, looking at his left hand go up and down on the guitar, fret to fret, string to string, right hand rhythmically sliding on the strings and making a soft noise, until Frank stopped and looked up at him, only with his eyes, mouth half-opened and, fuck, he was adorable. And he also noticed that Gerard was staring at him.

Gerard looked away, trying to hide the fact that he was a total creeper when Frank asked him ''Have you ever played guitar?'' Gerard turned his head to look at him. ''I think I did, like, once. It wasn't anything, just trying to play 'Ode to Joy' for elementary school, you know.'' Frank laughed ''Everybody starts somewhere, isn't it? Come here, I'll show you!'' He patted the space on the floor besides him. Gerard dragged himself to Frank, who was sitting cross-legged on the floor.

He handed him the guitar and Gerard held it awkwardly, trying to figure out where to put his hands and how to put the instrument on his knees. Frank asked him ''So, it means that you don't know any chord? Or power chord?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about right now.'' Gerard smirked, feeling kind of pathetic. ''It's alright man!'' Frank laughed ''Here, let me show you.'' Frank wrapped Gerard from behind, oh god, and put his hands on Gerard's. ''Here, you see on the sheet? You have to start as a B chord, so you just do it like this'' Frank pushed Gerard's left fingers with his ''and you strum eight times, like this'' he held Gerard's right hand and made the strings ring with it ''and here you go!''

Frank probably taught Gerard how to play the whole song, but Gerard could only remember how warm and good Frank's fingers felt on his, like the missing pieces of a big, complicated puzzle.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woah, that took a long time, isn't it? I have no excuses, I'm just lazy and my beta was busy. Woops. Feel free to leave some hate in the comments, I deserve it. In all seriousness, though, I am beyond happy to post this chapter! I think it's the best yet and I hope you all will enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it.  
> Happy holidays and shout out to Evelyn for beta-ing this for me, you rock!

''Oh, shit, it's Christa, oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck!'' Ray buried his face under his arms and tried to hide his wild mane of hair behind his coffee. They were at the small mall, the only one in this town, in the tiny dark Starbucks where Jon worked. Pete, Patrick, Frank, Ray, Mikey and Gerard were all hanging out and sitting on chairs that they brought from other tables to one in a corner near of the entrance. The counter was a few feet away from them so they could easily conversate with Jon without being too noisy.

A pretty girl with long, dark hair was walking up to the counter. She was wearing a tank top, jeans and had a messenger bag with pins on it. She held a green army jacket on her arm and she smiled big and brightly to Jon before ordering an iced cappuccino. She seemed pretty nice.

"Well, why don’t you just go talk to her?" Gerard asked naively. He took another sip of his coffee and, damn, Jon sure was a good coffee maker.

“Dude.” Ray answered with a squeeky, loud whispering voice, raising his head, still holding his hair in both of his hands “We basically are birth controls.”

The guys all mumbled and hesitantly nodded in agreement. That was a point.

''Well, if you actually talked to her more than once, you'd probably have a chance.'' Frank said smugly. Ray held up a finger and was about to say something but Frank kept talking ''And no, asking her for her pencil sharpener in class doesn't count.'' Ray closed his mouth and put his finger down, putting his face back on the table.

Gerard could see that Pete was doing his best not to burst out laughing and he was pretty grateful for him doing so, because he'd probably draw attention from Christa if he did.

Christa walked out of the shop and Patrick informed Ray of that. He raised his head and sipped from his ice coffee. ''If you like her that much, you should speak to her some day.'' Jon told Ray from the counter. He was bending down on it and was looking at them. ''You know, I could write your number on her cup next time so she can hit you up or something?''

''No, no, no, no, no! No! Nein! Non! That's probably, like, harassment or something! No, she probably doesn't even like me anyways.''

''How can you even know, Toro? Next time we see her, I'm gonna push you against her or something. You can't even stop me.'' said Pete.

''You go, Petey-boy.'' Jon agreed. ''Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some cups to clean.'' He went back to work.

They all drank their coffees slowly, talking about music and such before Frank leaned on Gerard's side, into his personal space, totally not making Gerard extra self-conscious about not washing his hair in at least 6 days. "Look, look at them" Frank whispered, pointing an old couple with his chin. They were both wearing hideous fur coats. "Look at them, in their natural habitat, sharing their love for each other and dead animals." He snickered "Majestic."

Gerard could only laugh at this. He turned to look at Frank who was laughing too. Gerard replied “Dying to make these horrible things must be so dishonoring. I’d rather make a pair of Doc’s or something, y’know.” They both laughed and exchanged smiles, not moving, only looking at each other until Frank turned his eyes away and took another sip of his soy latte.

Mikey raised a knowing eyebrow at Gerard and Gerard was so fucking done with his brother and his all-fucking-knowing eyebrows.

 

At the end of the day, the guys had drank at least 3 coffees and had to take pee breaks about every 10 minutes. They were standing outside, at the back of the mall, smoking and all shuffling a little bit on their feet in their thin coats to warm themselves up. It was a pretty cold and grey October day and Gerard couldn't stop himself from looking at how pretty the smoke was, flying away in the wind with leaves in the cloudy sky. Frank looked beautiful too, his cigarette between his pale lips and his face blurred by a foggy whirlwind made by the smoke.

''We should have a sleepover or something. I don't wanna go home yet.'' Patrick said.

''Man, I would have let you guys sleep over at my house, like I said we would do but, last time when Gabe came over it didn't end very well, my parents probably won't let anyone over for a while. Sorry.'' Pete answered, genuinely looking sorry. ''What about you, Ray?''

''You know my parents. You should ask Patrick.'' He looked hopefully at Patrick. He shook his head no. ''Mikey, Gerard? You told us that your room was fitted, Gerard, do you think your mom would let us sleep over? If it doesn't bother you, of course.''

''Our mom isn't home, like usual. It doesn't bother us, I think.'' Gerard kind of lied when he said this. He knew his house wasn't normal and had something weird in it-he understood this when he saw a fucking shadow in his mirror last Monday-and he didn't want to put his friends in danger or scare the living shit out of them. He gave a nervous look to Mikey who looked like he was thinking the same thing. Gerard knew that his friends thought that the whole bathroom accident was a hallucination or just some weird misunderstanding and that was why they still wanted to come over, but Gerard knew that it wasn't some kind of sick joke and that something could happen. Anything.

''Good! Then jump in Pete's car, I'll drive!'' said Frank, taking the keys from Pete's pocket and walking hurriedly to Pete's car.

''You can't even reach the fucking gas pedal, Frodo Baggins.'' Ray stopped him with his arm, took the keys from his tattooed hand and smiled. ''I think I'll drive.''

 

They fixed Gerard's room to be perfect for a sleepover: they put every pillow they had in the house there, installed the TV on Gerard's desk, put Gerard's, Mikey's, and their mom's mattresses on the ground, scattered bags of chips and bottles of alcohol everywhere and brought a box of old VHS's downstairs. They were going through the VHS box to find a movie to watch when Gerard retrieved Freaky Friday from it.

''How about we watch Freaky Friday, or something like that?''

''It's a fucking chick-flick.'' Mikey replied.

"And you're being a bitch. Now go connect the VHS player, please." Gerard told him. Frank laughed and took a movie out of the box "Or we could watch 'The Amityville Horror', how does that sound?" The guys all seemed pretty excited and agreed while Gerard was, surprisingly, kind of reluctant. Nobody seemed to notice and Mikey inserted the tape in the VHS player. They were all slouched over pillows or laying on their bellies. Gerard had installed pillows on the wall and was leaning on them. Frank was besides him and passed him the bottle of Scotch. He drank a sip and, even if the drink tickled his tongue and burned his throat, he felt warm, fuzzy and sleepy. He loved the smell of alcohol and of Frank's hair in the air. He loved having friends over, not feeling empty and seeing from the window how dark and rainy was the world outside and how sunny and happy he felt inside. He stopped worrying about his house and started to relax.

After maybe 15 minutes watching the movie, the TV turned itself off, the lights went out and, great, it was a blackout. ''Aw, shit.'' Gerard moaned, shuffling around in the mountain of pillows and teenage boys laying in front of him. ''I guess we won't see the end of the movie?'' Gerard was crawling to the VHS player to turn it off but then, he heard a terrible crash from the attic and jumped to go hide his face in Frank's shoulder. He heard Frank's startled breath but didn't care. Frank meant security right now. ''What the fuck was that?!'' asked Pete, looking around. ''Oh, fuck.'' said Mikey, blankly. He was sat up and his whole being, except from his mouth, was frozen. The light of the window reflected on his glasses. He said slowly, ''Pete, you remember that one time I texted you about Gerard's stuff falling on the floor?''

''Yes?'' Pete turned his face at him.

''I think something similar is happening right now.'' That made the atmosphere even more chilly and scary.

Suddenly, another crash was heard, followed by sounds similar to someone scratching the floor. Then, the TV turned itself on again, but none of the lights did. On the screen, only snow appeared and the blank sound of it filled the room. Everyone pried at it. The only window that was in Gerard's room sharply opened, letting a rush of cold and leaves in. The teenage boys jumped and shivered, making scared noises. Pete wrapped both of his arms around Mikey's shoulders, while Patrick had a hand on his thigh. Ray was hugging a pillow so hard Gerard was scared it'd break and feathers would start flying around everywhere. Patrick was looking around, probably freaking out. ''Okay guys, could someone tell me what the heck is actually happening right now? 'Cause I'm kind of confused and kind of, I don't know, about to piss my pants?'' Mikey was speechless, Pete was looking around and trying not to look too frightened. Gerard's mouth was so dry from all the cold sweat that was coming out of him and it almost ached him to answer Patrick. What the fuck was he sharing his house with?!

''Okay, Patrick, as Mikey said, something threw my shit on the floor one day. And I think it was the same thing that appeared in my mirror the other day.'' Gerard answered, still leaning on Frank. He was petrified that if he talked, the thing would strike again. ''And now, it's coming from the attic.''

''Okay, we'll go upstairs to check. Come on guys.'' said Mikey blankly, slowly standing up. ''Does anyone have a flash light?''

The guys all looked around, none of them really wanting to do that, not even Mikey, who came up with the idea. Pete unstuck himself from Mikey, trying to appear as if he wasn't scared shitless two seconds before. ''I have an idea.'' he said with a smug smile. ''I'll call Andy and Bob and ask them to bring over flashlights and recorders. Let's play Ghostbusters.''

When Andy and Bob arrived at Gerard and Mikey's house in Bob's van, the guys were waiting on the couch by the front door, in the dark, all together because they didn't want to be alone in this house. Even when Frank had to go pee, he asked Gerard to follow him to the door, so he wouldn't have to battle a ghost all by himself. They made their way through the dark because, apparently, nothing electric worked, except for the TV. It was kind of awkward to hear Frank pee but, at the same time, Gerard felt kind of warm inside, knowing that Frank chose him to protect him. They entered the house without ringing. ''I brought Katie, if it doesn't bother you guys.'' Andy announced, after greeting each of the guys.

''Who the fuck is she?'' Gerard asked. They didn't need to bring someone else in this, he was already scared enough for his own friends' security but, before he could even wait for an answer, Andy got out a grey, tiny, fluffy bunny out of his hoodie's kangaroo pouch. ''She hates being alone at night.'' Gerard's friends went all 60 year-old women seeing a baby on it and ran to pet it while cooing, except for Bob, who seemed exasperated, and Gerard had difficulty not to join them on their pussy frolics.

Gerard coughed to get the guys' attention. ''So, hum, did you guys bring the stuff Pete asked for?''

Bob got out of his backpack at least 3 flashlights and a recorder. ''Hope we have enough. What the fuck is even happening, though?''

Before Gerard could even open his mouth, Patrick told Bob with a kind of hysteric tone ''Bob, there's a fucking ghost in this house. The lights all went out and the only thing that works is the TV, and there's only static and also the window opened itself. This is some Paranormal Activity material, there.''

''Maybe the fuses fucked up guys. We're not in fucking Paranormal Investigation, there's no stupid ghost.'' Just as he said that, the front door that he left open shut itself violently, making a loud, dull noise. The guys all took a step back in fear. But not Bob. Bob didn't have feelings, nor was he ever scared, whatsoever. ''Calm the fuck down, guys, it's just the fucking wind. Y'all are a bunch of pussies that shouldn't be left home alone.'' And okay, there was a little bit of truth in that, but Gerard still believed that the ghost theory was very plausible.

''You're just jealous because you can't investigate for ghosts in your own house. Now give me all your shit'' said Frank, while taking Bob's backpack out of his hands ''and Mikey, show me from where we can go in your attic. Gerard said the noises were coming from there.''

Mikey lead all the guys up the little stairs they had that brought them to their mom's room, Mikey's room, Gerard's old room and a bathroom. They stopped on the little plateau that was in the center of all these doors. Mikey pointed the ceiling and there, in the exact middle of the square of ceiling, was a small trap. ''There it is.'' Mikey announced.

''How are we even going to get up there?'' Ray asked, while Pete, with his 5'6 height, was trying to jump high enough to open the trap. ''Do you know if there is a ladder that we could use?'' Just when Patrick asked that, something in Gerard's head clicked. ''Yes!'' he exclaimed himself, starting to run downstairs, despite of his friends asking him what was he thinking about and telling him to go back upstairs because he couldn't go on his own.

He hurtled downstairs quickly, almost falling at least 3 times, and came, breathless, in the basement. There it was, the ladder that the renovator, Ben, left in there a week ago. He picked it up and grunted a bit because, wow, it was heavier than he thought, and ran back upstairs clumsily and more slowly than before.

When he finally joined his friends, he had a hard time stringing two words without having to take a deep breath between them, so he simply placed the ladder under the trap and gestured an 'after you' movement to Frank. ''Wow, thanks for the honor, you gentleman.'' said Frank, sarcastically. ''Okay, so I open the trap and you guys pass me a flashlight and the recorder. I'll go first, but you gotta follow me.'' The guys all agreed and Frank started tampering the trap, trying his best to open it. After a little while and lots of giggles and mockeries from Pete, Frank lost his temper and hit the trap, making it open with a loud noise, swinging outwards and almost hitting Frank in the face.

Everyone jumped back, startled by the noisy scream the wood made while cracking. As the trap unsealed, an huge amount of thick dust came out and Frank couldn't help but cough and wave his hand in front of his face in order to not die asphyxiated. ''I guess not a lot of people opened the trap, lately.'' Gerard stated. Frank laughed between two coughs. ''No shit, Sherlock.'' All that dust only brought even more to the creepy atmosphere that the attic seemed to have.

Pete gave Frank a flashlight and the recorder. ''You go, man. If you die, I take your records collection, okay?'' Pete said. He looked kind of worried, even if he tried to hide it by his joke. ''Haha, very funny.'' said Frank, voice shaking a little bit. He turned the flashlight on and looked around the attic with it before climbing into it.

When Frank's legs disappeared and the only sign that he was there was the faint light that the flashlight made, Pete went up the ladder and hoisted himself up in the attic. Pete's muffled voice was coming out of there. ''Oh, fuck, it's creepy here.'' Bob went up, too, making the wood creek more than Frank and Pete. Patrick took a flashlight, stayed at the top of the ladder for a moment, almost losing his green hat, making his light beam travel around before hoisting one of his leg up, closely followed by the other. Then, Ray, Andy, Mikey and, Gerard climbed up.

The attic smelled like mold, bits of dusts were flying everywhere and the air was thick, hot and hard to breath. Silhouettes of various furniture were lying in every corner of the room, with white tarpaulins hiding them from the eerie light that was coming out of a window, built in the angled roof. Under the glow that was coming out of the small window, from under we could see the dust even more.

The floor was uncomfortable to sit on. It was unfinished, only made of plywood and Gerard could feel splinters going into his hands when he crawled to join his friends. When he sat down with them, his jeans were light grey because of all the dust that got stuck to them and he had to whipe his hands on his loose pants to take the little bits of wood off them. Frank was frantically wiping his hands on his shirt, dusting his pants and shaking his head to take off whatever could have gone into his hair. Gerard guessed he was kind of a germaphobe.

''Okay, so the recorder is turned on.'' Andy whispered. ''Its battery is full so we can stay here for a moment. I'll carry it around, in case we hear anything weird.'' Katie was looking kind of scared. Her little snout, coming out of Andy's kangaroo pouch, moving up and down, sniffing the stale air.

''I say we go check what's under those big cloths.'' Ray said, pointing a shape that could be a big trunk. ''That's probably a trunk.'' Gerard said. ''Well, let's see if it is!'' Pete murmured loudly and he seriously sounded way too excited.

They all moved forward on all four, since the ceiling was too low to stand up, and sat on their legs when they were in front of the shape. ''Ready?'' Patrick whispered, his trucker hat askew on his blonde hair. Everyone nodded. He pulled sharply on the tarpauline, making it fly off of it and dust floated everywhere in their faces. The shape that was hiding, like Gerard stated, was a trunk. Ray tried opening it but it was locked. ''It's locked. We should try finding the key.''

Gerard was kind of disappointed. The guys all checked around, finding old rocking chairs, baby cribs, dresses that were falling apart and old diaries that were impossible to read because someone dropped water on it (or was it the humidity?). Bob was emptying a desk's drawers when he announced, kind of louder than he was supposed to be speaking ''Hey guys, I think I found the damn key.'' Everyone turned around and went to join Bob, congratulating him, when all of their flashlights went out.

''What the fuck. I thought we put new batteries in them, Andy?'' Bob said.

''Yeah, I thought so, too. Guys, we shouldn't stay here for too long anymore, it could be dangerous.'' Andy replied.

''No way I'm coming out of here without discovering what's in that trunk.'' Mikey said, stealing a flashlight out off his brother's hand and shaking it to try making it work again. ''And I'm sure all the flashlights wouldn't go out at the same time like that, it must be the thing that's in our house, it must mean there's something important in this fucking trunk.'' Gerard had never seen Mikey that determined.

Mikey slammed his hand on the flashlight a few times and, when a weak light beam came out of it, he took the key from Bob's hand and quickly crawled to the trunk. The guys followed him, not wanting to upset a resolute Mikey, and watched him insert the key in the trunk's lock. Gerard heard a click and Mikey opened the trunk.

The trunk was full of objects. Gerard went next to Mikey to get a better view. A creepy porcelain doll with a cracked face was on top of everything. Underneath it, there were documents, little jewelry boxes, a diary that was well kept (compared to the flooded and moldy ones he found), a set of baby shoes and old brown pictures. Mikey studied the shambles that were in the trunk with his creased eyes and wrinkled forehead. ''Bob?''

''Yeah?''

''Do you have your backpack with you?''

''Nope.''

''Then give me your hoodie.'' He put his hand out behind him, waiting for Bob's shirt, without even turning his eyes from the content of the trunk.

''Why the f-''

''Just give me your fucking hoodie.'' Bob reluctantly obeyed, taking his black hoodie off to reveal another black shirt under it. He handed it to Mikey and Mikey took it hastily. He took the sleeves and turned them around the neck of the shirt, tying them to the neck of the shirt so it was closed. He turned it around: he transformed Bob's shirt into a bag.

''Guys, help me stuff everything that you can from this trunk in Bob's hoodie.''

Bob watched from afar and muttered ''Why didn't you use Frank's hoodie to carry all this nasty shit?''

"'Cause Frank is tiny, Bob. I wouldn't have been able to fit more than, like, this diary in it.'' Mikey said, taking the small diary out of the trunk to show it to Bob and throwing it in the hoodie.

''Well, I hope it's fucking worth it, because I'll have to clean it now.'' Mikey made a sound that could have implied something like 'dont be a fucking diva, you throw up on some dirty guys in dirty bands in your free time, a little dust isn't much'.

After they put almost all the contents of the chest in the hoodie (except for that doll, it was way too fucking creepy), the flashlight went out again and the guys decided that it was time to go back downstairs. They all went down the ladder and went back in the living room. Gerard looked around the kitchen to find some new batteries to put in the flashlights.

Gerard heard Frank's voice coming from the living room ''Gerard, come check this shit out, I think we found something interesting.'' Gerard opened a drawer ''Yeah, wait, I just gotta find batteries-oh. There they are! I'm coming, I'm coming.'' Gerard walked quickly back to the living room and it was so weird to see his friends like that. They all had dirty, grey hair from the dust and their jeans and black shirts were stained by bits of wood and dust bunnies. The contents of the hoodie had been emptied on the low table that was in the middle of the room and between the two sofas.

''Look, I think we found birth certificates!'' Frank waved three sheets of yellowed paper in the air to show Gerard. ''One of them is from 1889, the other one is from 1895 and the last one is from 1916. That's so awesome.''

''What are their names?'' Gerard asked, sitting down next to Frank to see more closely. The name of the first one, the oldest, was Blake Bradford, the second one was Edlyn Linwood and the last one's name, the youngest, was Fern Bradford.

''And check this out.'' Ray said, sounding kind of worried, handing Gerard a newspaper clipping. It apparently was the front page of the Newark Evening News daily from 1920. He read the text, at the bottom right of the page, that was circled with dark ink, out loud.

_"BELLEVILLE- Edlyn Bradford, 25, hung herself in her attic after drowning her child in the bath. Her husband found her, dead, at 3 in the morning. He affirmed that he never thought his wife was crazy and he mentioned that he wasn't sure if he still wanted to live in his house, 36 of Clement Street, anymore."_

Everyone kept silent for a moment. Gerard put the page back on the table and put his hand in front of his mouth. ''Holy shit.'' he said silently. ''Holy shit.'' he repeated. ''Someone fucking committed suicide in our house. And this someone now hates us because we live in her fucking house.'' His friends were staring at him with big eyes. Why couldn't he fucking live in his own house? His mom payed for it, he never asked for that, he never did anything to this entity.

''Gerard, tomorrow, we'll go to church. We'll ask a priest to bless your house.'' Patrick said.

''Hey, altar boy, I don't think it works that way.'' Pete reminded him.

''I watched enough episodes of A Haunting to know that. And, if it doesn't work, then... We'll ask Ryan!'' Patrick replied.

''What can Ryan even do?'' asked Mikey.

The guys hesitated. ''We'll tell you later about it.'' Pete replied. Gerard looked out the window. He could see the night-time sky getting lighter. ''Okay, enough stuff going on for tonight. Let's go to bed.'' Gerard said, suddenly feeling drained of all his energy.

They all slept on the mattresses Gerard set in the basement. Gerard was lying on his side, next to Frank, and he tried not to lean too much on him, who was facing him, because, seriously, who would like to cuddle with Gerard? But then, Frank snuggled his face on Gerard's chest, grabbing the front his shirt with his little and pale tattooed hands, eyes shut and making sleepy noises, and Gerard couldn't help but wrap his arm around his waist.

Those were totally not butterflies flying in his stomach. Not at all.

 

''Gerard Arthur fuckin' Way! Go clean the mess that you made on the living room's table!''

Gerard opened his eyes to his mom's strident voice, coming from upstairs. He looked around him, kind of confused. He couldn't feel his arm anymore. He was spooning Frank and, oh god, since when was he spooning cute punk boys? He unstuck himself from his friend and sat up. ''Wake up guys.'' he said, speaking in an asleep and cracky voice. Frank turned his face around to look at Gerard and smiled at him. Gerard couldn't help but smile back and hide his face under his bangs. Andy was laying down with his bunny on his chest. Pete raised his head to look at Gerard. He was spooning Patrick. Okay, maybe with this group of friends, it was a friendly thing to cuddle. Gerard had had dumb hopes that he could date Frank or something. How fucking dumb of him.

''Pete, get the fuck off me.'' Patrick grunted. Pete stood up surprisingly fast for someone who went to bed at something like 5 in the morning. ''Let's go get some coffee guys.''

When they all sat down at the kitchen table to get breakfast, Donna yelled ''Gerard! Did I ask you something?'' then, she softened her tone and turned her face to his friends. ''Hi, I'm Gerard and Mikey's mom. You can call me Donna. What do you want for breakfast, loves? And what are your names?'' Gerard sighed and got up, taking all the documents from last night in his arms and bringing them downstairs, in the drawers of his desk. He went back upstairs to see his mom showing embarrassing pictures of him as a baby to his friends. She normally wasn't that fast.

Gerard growled. ''Ma, please, don't show the picture of me talking-''

''On the phone to your grandma on the toilet seat? Yeah, sorry, dude, too late.'' Ray said, with a big smile on his face. ''Oh, I'm sorry, Donna? Could you please bring me spinach for my bunny, please?'' Andy asked, all polite and kind of shy, despite of Donna's warmhearted hosting.

''Yes, for sure, sweetheart.'' Donna answered, getting up to rummage through the fridge. ''The next picture is from when I dyed my hair black, don't laugh too much at it, just look at Gerard.'' Gerard could see that she was wearing her sweat pants with 'Queen Bitch' written on her ass. His mom seriously was the Jersey mom.

''Aw, Gee, you were adorable.'' Frank said, looking up from the picture album that Pete was holding up on the table. He was behind Pete, supported by his arm on the back of Pete's chair. Gerard couldn't help but blush a little bit and mumble a ''Thanks.''

''Yeah, Gee, you _were!_ '' Pete laughed.

Donna served them breakfast, even making vegan pancakes for Andy and Mikey excused them so they could go put some clothes on and head to the church. Gerard chose a black Morrissey shirt Mikey got him for his birthday and put on a flannel shirt on top of it.

They all put their shoes on and went outside. It was really sunny today and Gerard couldn't help but scrunch his face at the light hitting his eyes. Bob took the keys out of his pocket. ''Let's go to this fucking church to get done with it.''

''Do you believe there's a ghost in my house, now?'' Gerard asked Bob. He didn't answer, only put on his sunglasses and opened his van's door. ''Get in losers, we're going churching!'' said Frank, jumping in the back of the van. Gerard couldn't help but laugh at this comment, whatever if his friends knew that he watched Mean Girls at least three hundred times.

Patrick pushed pass the church's heavy wooden door and came into the church, trying to make the less noise possible. Before entering, Frank whispered to Gerard ''Shhh, be careful, we might turn into Catholics.'' and Gerard couldn't help but giggly stupidly. The guys all followed him, walking in the aisle between the pews. It was such a weird contrast to see this white, clean, quiet and old church and seeing those punk kids that were only wearing black. Patrick looked left and right, apparently trying to find someone or something. ''Father Abbott?'' His words echoed on the walls of the empty chapel. Bob, who was besides Gerard, grunted. ''Fuckin' hate that bitter old man. I always went to church with my parents before and this man always shat on me because I never confessed anything. He's the worst, probably became a priest 'cause he couldn't get any anyways.'' Gerard was even more reluctant to meeting him, now.

''I think he's in his office.'' Patrick turned around to tell them. ''We'll go, follow me.'' They went to the back of the church, behind the little stage that was in front of the numerous rows of wooden pews. A little mahogany door was there, just besides a confessional booth. Patrick knocked on it and, seeing it was open, he slowly turned the doorknob and let his face enter the room. He said silently ''Father Abbott, are you busy?''

Gerard looked through the door's blurry window and could see a very old man (''He's been old since he was born, I'm sure'' said Frank about him, earlier) sitting at a desk through it. He had a very long aquiline nose between his sharp cheekbones. His whole face was sheared by deep wrinkles and his shiny head was surrounded by a few white hairs. He was reading documents with his small glasses on the tip of his nose when he looked up to see Patrick. ''Well, I am, but looks like I'm only there to help teenagers, right?''

''I'm sorry Father, but my friends and I do have a pretty serious problem. Would it bother you if I came in?'' Gerard was surprised at how Patrick could keep his calm with this nasty old man. ''Yes, do come in.'' Father Abbott rudely replied.

There were two chairs in front of the desk. Patrick let Gerard sit down next to him and all of the other guys came in and stood behind the chairs. ''So, um, my friends here, Gerard and Mikey'' he presented them with his hands ''live in a house that we think might be haunted. They hear noises and we found old-''

Father Abbott interrupted Patrick, his face becoming more and more tinted with every word. ''You really do think I have time for some foolish Halloween joke? You lunatic teenagers can't find any other thing to do than annoy an old man with some Pagan foolishness? Shoo, get away from my church!'' He was red with anger and his skeletal hands were tightly wrapped together

''But, Father, this ain't no-'' Ray tried to explain.

''Be gone!'' he screamed, suddenly standing up. No one wanted to argue with an angry old man, so they just swiftly went out of the room. ''What the fuck is wrong with this man?'' Mikey asked, when they were far enough from the priest's office.

They were all walking towards the giant door. ''He's always been like that.'' sighed Patrick. ''Also, what's up with this Halloween thing?''

''Stumpy! My birthday is next Friday, Halloween is in twelve days! He probably thought that we wanted to annoy him since Halloween was coming?'' Patrick looked kind of offended that Frank called him Stumpy. Only Pete used this nickname, not without getting somehow hurt.

Bob then spoke. ''What an ass. Also, are you really counting the days, are you five or something?'' Before Frank could defend himself, Bob asked. ''Who you calling, Pete?''

''Ryan. Hold on, I'll put him on hands-off mode when we're out of here.'' Patrick held the enormous and heavy door that lead outside for Pete. A little beeping sounds informed the guys that he put his phone on hands off mode.

''Yeah?'' Ryan's soft and tired voice came out of the speaker.

''Hey Ryan, you know about Gerard's problems in his house right? Like, he's basically in a Paranormal Activity movie or some shit.'' Frank nudged Gerard and whispered that he should profit from it. Gerard snorted.

''I think I heard it from Brendon, who heard it from you, who heard it from Mikey.''

''Yeah so, you know about it.'' Pete laughed. ''Ok, we tried to get some help from Padre asshole here, but I think he doesn't want to get his holy ass in our shit (Ray shook his head and mumbled about how he always hated that man) so I'm asking help from you.''

Ryan made an unamused laugh on the other side. ''Yeah, and how would I do that?''

''With your magic mojos!'' There was a pause at the other end of the line. Gerard stared incredulously at Pete. What the fuck? ''Do you know anything about saying goodbye to a ghost? Like, telling them to get the fuck out?'' Pete continued, taking Ryan's silence as a 'tell me more'.

''Hum...'' Ryan paused again. ''I guess I could check in my Book of Shadows?'' Ryan paused and made an uncertain moan. ''I don't know. Never tried that, sounds like some dark level of shit.'' Okay, was Ryan a wizard or something? That all sounded weird.

''Well, looks like you'll have to try, 'cause you're our last hope, dude.'' Pete replied. ''What about we pick you up on Friday and drive to Gerard's at 7 and see what we can do?''

''May not work that well, 'cause it won't be on a full moon, but we'll try. See you tomorrow. Bye.''

Pete flipped his phone off without replying. ''So, like, Ryan's been expelled from Hogwarts or something?'' Gerard asked, because, seriously, what the fuck? Everyone, except from Mikey and him, laughed. Patrick put a hand on his shoulder ''Sadly, no. He's been into - what's the name? Wicca, right? - Yeah, Wicca since middle school. It's this pagan religion, he calls it the Craft, it's basically witchcraft.''

''The Craft? Like, the movie about those four girls, with the crazy one and all?'' It was too late to deny that he totally watched this movie now.

''Yes, like the movie, oh my god, I loved it!'' Frank said, kind of too excited for a movie about teenage witches for a tough looking guy like him. ''I always call Ryan Nancy Downs, he hates it.'' Ray then started quoting the movie, pointing to Frank, all acting up the final scene. ''I bind you, Nancy Downs, from doing any harm: harm against other people and harm against yourself!'' Frank was slowly going down the stairs in front of the church, squirming around and making pained noises. He stopped and everybody laughed, even Mikey.

Gerard's friends were giant dorks.

 

On Tuesday night, Gerard realized that time managing wasn't his forté. He had way too much homework, accumulated from the last two weeks of having fun with his friend and using his homework time to draw or nap. But he still watched a horror movie marathon with his Mama and his brother from 7 to 10. And napped from 10 to 11.

He had been working on the same math homework since one hour and had just started eating a bagel - he wasn't even hungry - when his phone buzzed against his thigh. He got his phone out of his sweatpants pocket to see that he had just gotten a text from Frank. Slightly nervous, he flipped his phone open.

_hey its frnk u up?_

Typing slowly, doing his best not to sound dumb, he answered.

_No, im sleeping Hows it goin_

Frank replied apart immediately.

_ur hilarius. i cnt sleep wanna hng out?_

Gerard sat up and went upstairs to check if anyone was still up. The house was dark and everyone was sleeping. Gerard was kind of scared to be alone in the dark in this house, so he went back in his room, where there was light and the faint sound of Iron Maiden playing. He sure as hell didn't want to stay in his house and was kind of excited to sneak out. That was going to be another thing to mark off his typical teenager bucket list.

_Sure but wat would we do_

This time Frank took a minute or so to answer.

_idk ill tak my moms car nd stuff. brng alhcol, be in frnt of ur house in 10 mins. xofrnk_

Of course Gerard replied as quickly as he could.

_Cnt even type alcohol but still cn drive I'll be there_

Even if he sounded cool and relax in his texts, he was actually so nervous. He never hung out only with Frank and, sometimes, with school friends with whom you're used to only hanging out with as a group, it can quickly get awkward. It's a weird thing. Also, he kind of did look like shit. His hair was everywhere, and he was wearing a paint-stained hoodie and sweatpants.

Gerard hurried to take off his hoodie, put some deodorant on (seriously, he wasn't even sweating, why was he stinking that much), put on a pair of wore through light grey jeans and his favorite Iron Maiden hoodie, the one that Mikey gave him for his 13th birthday. He scoured around his room, trying to find underneath which pile of black clothing he hid his bottle of scotch. After swearing several times, he finally found it, near of his garbage can - that, by the way, started to smell kind of weird - and he threw it in his emptied school backpack.

He went upstairs quietly, quickly turning the light on when he entered the bathroom, somewhat shaking, apprehending what might happen, and put some product that his mom left on the counter in his hair. After struggling with it for a while, it finally looked acceptable and it didn't smell like cigarette and pizza anymore, which was a huge improvement.

He turned the light off, opening the door slowly to try not to make it creak and tried to silently go down the stairs. But then, in the middle of them, he got scared by a noise that sounded like a whisper (was it the wind or an actual ghost that was about to throw him down the stairs?) and he ran noisily down the stairs. Fuck if he woke someone up, he at least wouldn't die killed by an entity.

Gerard took his keys from the kitchen table, unlocked the door, walked out, locked it behind him and sat on the front door steps. He only had to wait now. He hoped Frank would hurry a little bit because it was surprisingly cold and he also was so nervous he thought some massive, carnivorous butterflies invaded his stomach.

"Not that I like him, I just don't wanna embarrass myself. That's all." He kept lying to himself with this mantra over and over again. He fucking liked Frank, he wanted to wake up next to him every morning, he wanted to ruffle up his hair, he wanted to smooch his dumb fucking face but then, he didn't want to get his hopes up for nothing. He always did that.

Suddenly, a large gleam lit up the dark, wet road. A small 2004 Subaru stopped in front of Gerard's house. The butterflies in his stomach became unbearable, he had to stand up and walk to Frank's mom's car if he didn't want to shit himself or rip his stomach out.

While he was approaching Frank's car, Gerard could see him stretch over the passenger seat to roll down the window. "Hey, where the fuck is the alcohol?'' Gerard smiled and opened his backpack to get out a bottle of Scotch. ''Is that how you greet your alcohol furnisher?" Frank smiled and unlocked the passenger door. ''You're my favorite.'' Gerard laughed lightly, trying not to show that he was blushing, and sat down, putting his feet on the dashboard.

''So, where are we going?'' Frank smiled and pushed on the pedal. ''It's a surprise. Also, give me some alcohol.'' Gerard was about to obey, but he thought about it. ''Wait... You kind of are driving right now. Just informing you, in case you didn't know.'' Frank laughed. ''Okay, you got me there.'' Gerard smiled and got himself a sip from the bottle. He hated how Scotch tasted and how it burned his throat like a cigarette did when he first smoked, but the warm feeling he felt at the bottom of his stomach made it all okay.

Gerard didn't know where they were going. They left the suburbs and the trees on the side of the road started getting more and more recurrent. A little bit later, Gerard believed they were in a forest. It was spooky, dark and Gerard could feel the cold wind that came from the open window on his cheeks, making his hair flow in the air. At one point, an orange leaf came flying in the car, right in Frank's hair. Gerard laughed and picked the leaf out of his hair and released it in the forest. Famous Monsters was blasting in the car. Gerard felt as if he was flying on the empty road.

Suddenly, the trees began to be fewer and Gerard noticed that they were actually going up a hill. He looked out of his window to see the lights of the city beneath them. He was amazed by how beautiful they looked in the darkness of the October night. He looked at Frank and Gerard noticed that he was already staring at him, smiling. ''That's beautiful. Thanks, Frank.'' Frank smiled at him. ''No problem, you haven't seen the best yet.'' Gerard went back to looking at the city, wondering what could be prettier than the houses and buildings of Belleville looking like Chinese lanterns.

Soon enough, the car stopped and it took Gerard a moment to notice it. Then, Frank got out of the car with a blanket in his hand that he got from the backseat and Gerard figured he should do the same. He took his bottle and got out. When he saw what was waiting for him outside of the car, he was speechless.

They were at the top of a mountain. He could see lights in the skies, lights on the ground that was way beneath them, he could see the light of the moon, full and beautiful, he could see the forest that they went through 20 minutes ago and he could see Frank, looking at him, waiting for some kind of response. Gerard hesitated, trying to find the right words to describe what he was seeing. Beautiful wasn't strong enough. Gorgeous couldn't even go near what Gerard was seeing right now. ''This is...'' he let his adoring look finish his sentence.

''I wanted to show you something that was as beautiful as you.'' Frank said, looking at the ground, then at him through his bangs. Gerard's heart missed a beat and Frank simply put his blanket around him and sat on the hood of the car. He lightly tapped the spot next to him, inviting Gerard to join him. Gerard brought his bottle with him and sat right next to Frank. ''That's cheesy as fuck man.'' Gerard informed Frank. He simply laughed and stole Gerard's bottle, taking a sip.

They looked at the stars together. Gerard decided it would be okay if he slowly put his head against Frank's chest and, apparently, it was. He could hear Frank's slow breath and his long gulps of alcohol, smell his laundry detergent and Gerard wanted this to last forever, despite the cold. They talked about constellations, astronomy, about how small they were compared to the universe and Star Wars until Gerard interrupted himself with a shiver. This hoodie really wasn't thick enough. Seeing that Frank noticed it, he apologized. ''Sorry, it's just that this hoodie really isn't thick enough.''

''Like your dick.'' Gerard acted as if he was offended for a moment and Frank put his arm and his blanket around his shoulder, making him come closer to him. ''Come on.'' Frank was so close to Gerard that he could smell the alcohol in his breath. He obviously wouldn't be able to drive back home but, Gerard would worry about that later.

Frank took another long gulp from the now almost empty bottle and made a face. Gerard laughed. This Scotch was really strong tasting. ''You know what?'' Frank sounded somewhat drunk. ''What, you're drunk?'' Frank laughed, burying his face in Gerard's neck, making him shiver, but not from the cold this time. ''Maybe I am very drunk and maybe you are my very favorite person.'' Gerard looked down at Frank sadly. ''Okay, maybe you are very drunk. Come on,'' he wrapped Frank in the warm blanket, ''let's get you home.''

They both went in the car and Frank wasn't extremely drunk. He could still walk not that badly but, when he sat down, he had to rest his head on Gerard's shoulder. ''You know, I'm not telling you that you're my favorite only because I'm drunk.'' Gerard half-smiled at this. ''No, seriously man, I think I might like you. Hope it's okay with you.'' Gerard could see himself sincerely smiling in the mirror. ''It is.''

~

It was 2:52 AM when Gerard dropped Frank at his house and helped him unlock the door. ''I'm sorry that you have to walk back to your house, man. I didn't think that one out.''

''I can see that.''

Frank laughed. ''Anyways, um. There, if you want, you can take my zip-up? I'm small, but it's way too big for me, so I think it might fit?'' He unzipped his jacket and handed it to Gerard, who started putting it on.

''Are you telling me I'm fat?'' Gerard asked him, smiling and looking through his bangs.

''Fat isn't the opposite of beautiful.'' They stared at each other for a long time, Gerard only wearing a sleeve of Frank's zip-up, not moving. Gerard looked at Frank's lips and Frank moved towards him. He kissed Gerard's cheek. ''Bye, man.''

''Bye, Frankie.'' Frank smiled and closed the door. Gerard stood there for a moment. He put his hand on his cheek. That so just happened. He put on the second sleeve of Frank's jacket and started walking home, his bottle of Scotch in his backpack. He didn't even need to drink to feel that warm fuzzy feeling at the bottom of his belly. Frank totally liked him. He totally liked Frank back. He was, like, an inch away from having a boyfriend, this was so exciting and he was a thirteen all over again.

He knew the walk home would be at least 30 minutes long, but he felt as if he was on a little cloud, he didn't even feel the fatigue he was undergoing, he didn't even feel his feet hurt from walking around with his Doc's without any socks on. He only felt Frank's lips on his cheek over and over again. He felt as if he was flying above the ground.

He arrived home before he could even notice. He unlocked the door, took off his shoes and headed downstairs, not even caring about evil ghosts haunting his house. He opened the door of his room and dropped his bag on the floor. He sat on the bed to take his pants off when he noticed something.

A doll was in his room. He didn't remember putting a doll in his room. Dropping his pants on the floor, he decided to take a closer look. When he understood what he saw, Gerard put his hands in front of his mouth and took several slow steps back, before falling back on his bed. That was the porcelain doll with a cracked eye they found in the trunk.

They left this doll in the attic.

He grabbed the doll, ran to his desk chair, pushed it under the window, jumped on it, opened the window and threw that fucking doll out of his room. He was breathing hard, his heart was beating so fast and he doubted he'd be able to sleep.

Trying to fall asleep, he couldn't help but imagine that creepy doll staring at him from the window. Why couldn't nice things last longer?

 

The next morning, he got out of his bed before his alarm clock buzzed. He hadn't slept of the whole night and was paranoid about opening his eye, scared of seeing the doll right in front of his face when he would.

Once again, his room was chilly as fuck so Gerard decided to wrap himself with his covers before exiting the room. ''Warmth and protection increased by ten.'' he told himself and then kind of wondered why Frank actually liked him when he was such a dork.

He went upstairs to Mikey's room. He saw that he was already up, texting and he decided to lay down next to him.

''Why'd you sneak out yesterday?''

''Wh-What? What you talking about?'' Mikey looked at him with an 'are you kidding me you know I'm like that I know' look and Gerard sighed. ''Frank drove me up a mountain. It was really nice. And how do you know I sneaked out?!''

''Ah, Frank, I should've guessed.'' He grinned. ''Also, your hair doesn't smell like shit anymore and I heard you coming back home at 4.''

''It was 3:40.''

''Whatever.''

Gerard smiled at Mikey who smiled back at him. Then, Gerard remembered what happened when he came back home. The doll. He had to tell Mikey. ''D'you remember that doll in the attic, the other day?''

''Nope. Why, you want it?''

''No, I think it actually wants me.''

Mikey stared at him for a while with a puzzled look on his face. ''Big ego much?..''

Gerard stared at Mikey right in the eyes. ''It was in my room. Nobody ever brought it there.''

''Shit.''

''You tell me.''

~

On Friday, Gerard was day dreaming in the cafeteria, sitting with his friends. He was glad it was Friday. Frank had brought him a coffee because he felt kind of sleepy. His eyes weren't itching and he didn't feel like yawning every ten seconds, he only felt warm and fuzzy and generally content with his life, even if he wished he could skip math and science to go marathon horror movies at his house.

He was halfheartedly eating a cookie and was sketching in his sketchbook instead of talking to his friends and he felt kind of bad about it, but he just really didn't have anything to say and his friends didn't need help to conversate. Gerard caught a ''I would like to get my ears stretched.'' said by Frank between two lines he drew and, when Bob replied ''Shove a pencil in them'', Gerard couldn't help but laugh and stare up from his sketchbook. Frank noticed his sudden attention to the conversation and said ''Hardcore.'' to Bob, looking and smiling at Gerard. ''You feelin' a bit sleepy, Gerard? I thought a coffee would be enough to wake you up.'' Frank told him.

''Oh, no, I'm feeling well, it's actually the first day in weeks that I don't feel like utter shit.'' Gerard was happy that he wasn't actually lying right now. ''Talking of utter shit, I heard this coffee is kinda gross, is it true?''

Frank giggled, putting his sleeves on his hands and leaned his head on them. ''The cafeteria's coffee is fucking gross, you should consider putting shitloads of sugar in it, I don't care if you're a 'coffee as black as my soul' kind of guy,'' Gerard snorted, ''take all of the packets of sugar I brought you, they're useful.'' Gerard noticed the 7 packets of sugar Frank put next to it. ''Thanks.'' Gerard smiled to him. Frank smiled back and this smile was lovely, it really was. Gerard wished his smile could be as pretty as Frank's.

''Guys, hey, lover boys!'' Bob called them and Gerard couldn't help but blush ''Patrick suggested that we'd go outside to get some fresh air, wanna mess up your lungs instead and have a cigarette break?'' Frank and Gerard both frantically agreed. God, Gerard didn't have a smoke since yesterday, he was dying for one.

After Andy had finished his sandwich (''I always eat a tofu spread and spinach sandwich, that's the only thing that makes me happy to eat at lunch.''), they all headed outside. It was pretty chilly and they all could see their breath. Gerard kind of regretted waking up late this morning - again - and not having thought of putting on his green army jacket on top of his hoodie. He drank a sip of his coffee to warm himself up and Frank was right. Even with all that sugar, the coffee tasted of cardboard, stale water and was extremely bitter.

They sat down at a picnic table, the same that Gerard found Frank crying on, the other morning. Frank gave him a smoke and Joe lent him his lighter. There was a light fog around them. Ray pointed out that all of their initials were engraved in the fading wood of the table. Bob got a pocket-knife out of his usual black hoodie and suggested Gee to engrave his own initials. He immediately accepted. While Gerard was starting to carve the table (he never thought that doing so was this hard), Joe started talking. ''Pete told me about what happened on Saturday night. Are you excited to see Ryan's amazing powers?'' Gerard could sense the sarcasm in Joe's question. He turned his face from the work. ''Do you believe in it?'' he asked, wide-eyed.

Joe hesitated. ''I don't know. I'm not sure, I think it'd be pretty cool if it worked, though...'' He laughed. ''I mean, if a ghost can be real, anything can be, right? My advice, though, would be to move out, man.'' He took a puff of his cigarette. ''Let's hope for you it works anyways.''

~

Ryan came into Gerard's house with Pete, Frank, Brendon, Patrick and Ray, wearing a big leather satchel over his thin shoulder. ''I found two spells in a book and I brought everything. We should wait until it's dark outside, spirits are stronger at 3 in the morning. My dad wants you guys to take me back home early tomorrow, but he probably will either be shitfaced when I come home or at the bar, so, it doesn't really matter.'' Gerard was kind of surprised by Ryan's plan (and his ease to talk of his father's drinking problems), but he nevertheless felt slightly excited. He had the impression of being in a Buffy episode, that was so cool.

Ryan looked somewhat nervous. Because of all the detention he got, he gave up on even putting gel in his brown hair, letting it fall down on his eyes and making him seem even more uncertain about what he was about to do. Gerard didn't blame him: it's not like he did some witchcraft ritual to summon an evil spirit every day either.

It was only 5:30 but everyone was hungry so Mikey prepared everyone some pasta. They all sat on the gigantic couch in Gerard's living room and they watched some Power Puff Girls re-runs while eating and being told repetitively by both Gerard and Mikey to not make any stain on the beige sofa or they'd ''take care of them''.

At midnight, they were all sitting in the living room, doing homework - more like talking while having their homework in front of them - when Ryan decided it was time to do the ritual. ''Where are the apparitions the strongest, Gerard?'' he interrupted the conversations and put an end to the relaxed atmosphere.

''Oh, um, in my basement. You sure we-''

''Let's go.'' Ryan threw his satchel over his shoulder and he headed to the basement. Everyone followed him, Brendon right after Ryan, jumping, supported by Ryan's shoulders, and Gerard last. He was so scared and nervous, he had difficulty to even go down the stairs because of his shaking legs. He didn't want to know what the fuck was happening in his house or who the fuck was living there. Or deading. Whatever.

They went in the small living room in front of Gerard's bedroom - and by living room, I mean a room that looked like a garage with a beanbag, a cement floor, boxes of useless stuff and some cushions scattered around to sit down on - and sat down on what they could find that give them minimal comfort (Brendon abandoned, not without difficulty, the beanbag ten seconds after he let himself drop on it and opted for the cushion next to Ryan). Ryan installed his bag on the floor, got a chalk out of it and looked alternatively at Mikey and then Gerard ''Would it bother you guys if used this on the floor?''

Gerard looked at Mikey confusedly. ''I don't think it'll bother us, it'd bother our mom more.'' Mikey's face remained completely serious. ''Don't worry, I'll clean.'' They agreed.

Ryan traced a giant circle, passing in front of everyone and, then traced 5 lines, starting from random points of the circle to form a giant pentacle. He put the chalk back in his satchel, took a black plate and a white candle out of it and placed them in the middle of the star. He sat back on his knees, on the small uncomfortable pillow on the floor. He got an old wrecked book and matches out of his bag. He opened it and stayed silent for a moment, thoughtfully reading his Book of Shadows.

''Okay, so, hm... The dwellers of this house must light up the candle and give an offering to the spirit, to give it the energy to manifest itself. Put your cellphones there, it'll feed of the batteries. Okay, here are the matches.'' He handed them a pack of matches with his long bony fingers. Gerard and Mikey crawled to him, too lazy to stand up and went in the middle of the circle. Mikey reluctantly put his cellphone on the black plate - ''Don't worry, it'll only take its energy, nothing else'' - and he let Gerard light up the match. Then, they both held it and lit the tip of the candle's wick, letting it release a strong scent of incense.

''Okay, now get back to your places.'' They obeyed. ''Now, we all have to hold hands.'' Pete grabbed Patrick's hand and whispered ''No homo, though.'', giggling, before being hushed by Ryan, seemingly irritated.

''Okay, now, I'll recite a spell. You all better shut the fuck up or the spirits are gonna attack your ass.'' He breathed in deeply and read from his book.

''You who lived yesterday, I’ll call you from my mind to yours, come back from the shadows into the light and show yourself here.''

The candle suddenly lightly flicked. Gerard could definitely feel the room getting colder. He shuddered and looked around him, trying to see if anyone else could feel it. Nobody seemed to feel it, only remaining silent with their hands intertwined together. Gerard looked over to Mikey and he looked at him with the same concerned look he probably had on his face.

He tried to shrug it off, giving Mikey a calm look to make his brother feel safer but he guessed that he didn't look that reassuring, because Mikey didn't seem any less terrified. Gerard decided to close his eyes and concentrate some more.

''Okay, I guess we could ask questions. Why are you staying here?'' Everyone had their eyes wide-open, doing their best to see any signs of spirits answering. Nothing happened. Only the clock tickling and he house settling.

''Okay, you know what? Let's just do something drastic, 'cause I'm not gonna fuck around for the whole night. You who lived yesterday, thank you, now fly away from this earth and join the world of spirits.'' He angrily flipped through the pages of his Book of Shadows. ''I fucking hate the organization of this book, fuck.'' he grumbled through his teeth.

''Woah, calm down, I bind you, Ryan Ross, from doing any harm: harm against other people and harm against your-'' Frank started before getting jabbed right in the stomach by Ryan's pointy elbow.

''Shut the fuck up, Iero.'' Frank let of a huffed cry of surprise and pain. ''Okay,'' he finally flattened the book at a place around the middle. ''Exorcism.''

This word made Gerard's stomach sink in. That was crazy, he never wrote ''Perform an exorcism with my friends'' in his bucket list, he never thought they'd perform an exorcism, that was crazy. He gazed at Ryan, trying to be sure that he actually did say that he'd perform an exorcism in his own house. ''I'm- I'm sorry, what? I'm sorry, I think I understood exorcism, which you obviously didn't say by the way, so what did you say?''

Ryan looked at him confusedly. ''I did say exorcism. Please, use this salt'' he threw him a big bag of salt that hurt him when it hit him on the knee ''to line on the chalk we did. Don't let any spot empty or you'll probably die.'' Gerard did hope he was kidding, in spite of him looking so nervous.

Gerard obeyed, helped by Frank and Mikey, while the other guys were putting the cellphones away and got served, in a red cup, a bottom of holy water ''Just in case''. Gerard was so nervous, he made the salt train uneven and outside the chalk lines.

''Let's all sit down. Okay, I'll say the exorcism and if there really is a spirit here'' everyone glared at Ryan ''then, it will show itself. Let's hold hands and start.'' Everyone obeyed. Ryan then took a deep breath and said in a deep, different voice.

'' _Regna terrae, cantata Deo, psallite Cernunnos, regna terrae, cantata Dea psallite Aradia,_ '' The upstairs stairs stared creaking '' _caeli Deus, Deus terrae_ ,'' The creaking went further down '' _Humiliter majestati gloriae tuae supplicamus_.'' The steps going downstairs cracked one by one. Everyone looked at each other worriedly and Ryan decided to continue.

'' _Ut ab omni infernalium spirituum potestate,_ '' Gerard could feel a cold breath in his neck that made him shiver and the air made the candle's fire trickle. Patrick looked around worriedly and Gerard could feel cold sweat running down his back. He could see panic in Frank's eyes. ''I think we should maybe-'' Frank was interrupted by Ryan's incantation.

'' _Laqueo, and deceptione nequitia, omnis fallaciae, libera nos, dominates._ ''

Suddenly, the candle's light went bigger. It dropped quietly in its plate and the flame lit up the whole plate and became almost as big as Gerard's head. '' _Exorcizamus you omnis immundus spiritus_ '' Gerard could feel the warmth of the candle on his cold cheeks. '' _Omnis satanica potestas, omnis in-_ '' The flame became huge, making a bonfire in the basement, licking everyone's feet, making them back down, yell and scare the living fucking shit out of Gerard.

It took a moment for Gerard to notice that the flames were slowy starting to eat the several pages of exorcism in Ryan's book. The rest of the pages remained intact. Ryan yelled something Gerard couldn't quite understand and he started stepping hysterically on the book, trying to put the fire out. Gerard stared back at the fire and he swore he had seen a woman's face before it suddenly put itself out. He put his eyes on the rest of the room. The aftermath was terrible: the fire had burnt the a pentacle shape in the cement, an immense black spot was on the ceiling, Frank was teary eyed and Ray's hair was slightly black, filling the room with a bad smell of burnt hair.

''Ma's gonna kill us.'' was the only that Mikey could manage to say.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, quite a time gap between the chapters, right? Don't worry, I'm already working on the fifth (and last!!!) chapter of this story. Again, a shout out to Evelyn for beta-ing this. I worked very hard on this chapter and, even if it's shorter than the other ones, I really do think it's pretty great. Also, don't worry, the length of the last chapter will make up for it. I'm excited just publishing this (and consider yourselves lucky I'm doing so at this time because I really should be sleeping right now). Thank you for reading and I hope I'll post the fifth chapter in not too long.

Gerard was sure everyone was sleeping. He was also sure that he was the only one who wasn’t. He couldn’t believe that his friends were sleeping when this had just happened. The black ceiling he could see when he went to the bathroom, next to the room where they had tried to communicate with the spirit, reminded him of the terrible thing that had just happened. The thought of cleaning this up tomorrow morning – or this morning, what time was it? – made him feel even shittier.

He stared at his room's ceiling, eyes hurting from the fatigue, doing his best to forget the face he saw in the fire. He felt as if an ice bucket was emptied into his stomach every time he thought about it.

A fucking exorcism, a fucking ghost, in his own fucking house. He still couldn’t wrap his mind around it.

He turned onto his right side again.Gerard could see his second problem right there in his face: Frank. He got butterflies just from seeing his face on the pillow next to him. His light lips were slightly parted and his short brown lashes brushed the dark circles under his eyes. He was so close Gerard could feel his hot breath that somehow always smelled slightly minty. Their little night escapade didn’t help his insomnia, Gerard thought.

He had a hard time keeping his eyes open, they were itching. Frank was so pretty and he was so, so tired. Gerard brushed his hand on Frank’s soft and kind of chubby cheek. He smiled.

If love was a weakness, Gerard could be defeated by a soft breeze right now.

 

After that, the weekend passed quickly and wearily. The day after Ryan’s summoning everyone went back home, seeming way less enthusiastic as when they did when they entered Gerard and Mikey’s house on Friday night. Mikey and Gerard cleaned up the ceiling, knowing that their mom could come home at any time, before they both confined themselves into their rooms as if it could make the ghost, their problems disappear. Gerard had to spend his day on Sunday doing homework. He was feeling increasingly stressed, especially when he looked in his school agenda only to find out that he had tests almost every day of the week.

On Monday morning, Gerard was tired, given the fact that he had studied until 11 and then was unable to sleep because of the stress. At 2 AM, he sent a message to Frank: “Dude Im sorry Im sending you a mssg at an incredible time I jst cant sleep”. He never answered. Gerard was slightly disappointed because Frank had always been there to talk at 1 AM when neither of them could sleep. However, he was glad that Frank finally slept because he was pretty sure that he hadn’t slept more than 4 hours a night during the last two weeks.

In the morning, after an almost sleepless night, he got dressed in clothing that didn’t smell like smoke and sweat, hopped on the bus with Mikey and got to school. He felt like a zombie. He went to his locker, like a robot, accomplishing his morning routine automatically. But something was different from his routine. Frank probably had seen yesterday’s message before school because he had left a black thermos cup with bats drawn on with silver sharpie full of pumpkin coffee on top of his locker with a little “dont sleep in math: ull get killed –xofrnk ps: good morning” note. Okay, that was so fucking sweet of him. Gerard stood on the tip of his toes and took the thermos in his hand, feeling the warmth oozing from the container. He felt as if he had little hearts in his eyes when he took his first sip: pumpkin coffee is his favourite.

He then unlocked his locker to put away his scarf and retrieve his needed school books. He unrolled his scarf from around his neck and threw his bag on the floor to unzip it open. Gerard put his hand in his dark bag to take out his history textbook, but he felt something strange, nothing that felt like his history book, or anything that he normally brought to school, as a matter of fact.

He completely opened his backpack and looked into it. He made a choked scream when he saw what was inside. A girl besides him with long brown hair that slightly smelled of goat milk looked at him, intrigued. “Hm, I forgot a project that I had to hand in at home.” he tried to look disappointed instead of frightened. “Dammit.” he said, making a small arm gesture while snapping his fingers. The girl stared at him for a while and told him it happened to everyone, giving a small smile before walking away, looking slightly weirded out.

Gerard shoved his school books in his bag, quickly threw it on his shoulders before starting to run. Mikey’s grade’s lockers were in the newest building’s basement that was connected to the oldest building by a windowed path that gave you a view of the school’s backyard. Gerard knew it could take him a while to run from across his school to find his brother and he knew he only had less than 10 minutes left before his first class, but he had to see him.

He exited his grade's locker area as fast as he could out and ran up the stairs so quickly that his thighs were aching and his chest was heaving aggressively. He pushed some people out of his way, not without excusing himself quickly, and jumped over some guy’s bag. His race was quickly stopped by him running into someone as tall as a wall. “I’m sorry man, I really need to-” He gazed up. “Shit.”

A fucking smug looking face with a shit-eating grin and chimpanzee ears was above him. Rick Hagan stared at him maliciously. “Looks like someone is in a hurry. What, you wanna suck faggot Iero before class?” Gerard had to restrain himself from punching him. “Let me go.” Rick laughed before adding “You really think I’ll let you go, you stupid faggot?” Gerard heard a girl gasp behind him. He looked behind himself. Good, now a crowd was forming around them, waiting for a fight.

“Please, Rick, let me go, I need to go see my brother.” Gerard tried to walk around Rick but he only got blocked by his huge body. He pushed him back in front of him. “Bullshit, you wanna go suck dick ‘cause you’re a fag. I see you hanging out with that Iero piece of shit, he’s a fag, you’re one, what an happy couple.” He could hear people laughing. Gerard got really annoyed by his simple ass and decided to stop being polite, since that would get him nowhere.

“Glad you’re getting imaginative.” He heard laughter, louder than the one he heard when Rick insulted him, seconds ago. “Also, it’s a happy couple, not an.” Another wave of laughter. Gerard looked around, appreciating his audience and smiling at them and, as he was turning back to face Rick, he felt a punch hit him viciously on his jawbone. Loud gasps. Before he could look at his aggressor’s face once again, he was pushed to the ground, making his bag fall off his back. He could hear screams, somewhere far away. He could only see black and green and red stars.

He heard Rick crouch down to pick up Gerard’s bag. “Let see what pansy’s got in here.” Oh shit, Gerard was fucking dead. When Rick would see what was in his bag, his life at that school would be ended. He wanted to keep his eyes closed to avoid seeing the horror. Rick unzipped the bag and started rummaging through it. “What the-?” Rick was holding a doll from its dusty hair. That one fucking creepy doll: it had a crack on its porcelain face, its dress was falling apart and it was plain fucking scary. “You have a fucking doll in your back pack, you fag.” He started cackling and the hilarity echoed among the crowd.

“Rick, put it back, please.”

Gerard looked miserable and he tried hiding the panic and the tears in his voice. He was on the floor and about to cry. He didn’t know how the doll ended up there, that’s why he had been running to tell Mikey. The fucking ghost did it. It wasn’t his fault. Why did this happen to him?

Rick smirked at him and, for a second, Gerard thought he might give him his bag back, along with the doll, but then he saw him raise his foot. He was going to get kicked in the face. Gerard only closed his eyes, waiting for the shock to come, accepting his sad fucking high school fate as a gay loser. Right when he thought he would feel immense pain, or his nose cracking, or blood gushing all over his shirt, like in the gore B-list movies he watched, he heard someone shout “What the fuck is going on?” Gerard opened his eyes and looked where the voice was coming from. It was Bob. That was his ticket to freedom.

He profited of the general confusion to crawl around to retrieve his back pack and the horrifying doll and ran to hide himself behind Bob. Rick looked at Bob, with a rather stupid but surprised face. “Looks like you hangin’ out with the fags, now. You turned gay over the summer, Bryar? Shoulda known, you were checking us out in the locker room.”

“Oh, fuck off, Hagan, you wish I did.” Rick gasped and the people that were circling Gerard and Rick for a few seconds started scattering away, scoffing at Bob’s comment. Bob grabbed Gerard by the arm and whispered to him “Let’s go.” Gerard obeyed, feeling an immense wave of love for Bob. He might have had a small crush on him, at that moment.

They walked together in silence for a little while. Gerard was too shaken away to explain anything to Bob, especially why he was stuffing a doll into his bag. “I wanna see Mikey.” he said in a wet voice. He dried a tear of relief that had just slid off his eyeball, keeping his friend from seeing it.

“We don’t have time, Gerard, you’ll have to wait. Also, what the fuck happened?”

Gerard hesitated then only replied “Don’t wanna talk about it.” He could see slight disappointment in his friend’s eyes but Bob didn’t say anything and Gerard was happy that he respected his silence. He wanted to forget his encounter with Rick and he wanted to tell about the doll to Mikey first, during the break, and then he would explain everything to his friends during lunch.

 

As soon as the bell rang, Gerard woke Bob up (History definitely wasn’t Bob’s favourite subject) and then ran out of the class to see Mikey. Surprisingly, his brother was already waiting for him outside the classroom. “What you doing here?”

“Bob texted Pete who texted me that shit went down so I wanted to know if you were okay.”

“That’s nice of you but how could Bob have sent you a text, he was asleep?” Gerard pointed his thumb over his shoulder to Bob who was whipping drool from his cheek and his desk with his black hoodie’s sleeves. Mikey simply shrugged his shoulders, quickly checking an incoming text on his phone. “So, what happened?” Gerard looked around and was about to tell his brother what had happened but he decided that it would be safer if he showed Mikey the doll where people couldn’t see it. He grabbed Mikey’s arm and tugged on it. “Come to the bathroom, I don’t want people seeing or hearing this.” Mikey simply followed him, seeming intrigued.

In the bathroom, Mikey jumped and sat on the border of the window and waited for Gerard to tell him what had happened. Gerard took a deep breath and retrieved the doll from his back pack to show to his brother. “Found this in my bag this morning.” Mikey gasped as it scared him. “I never put that there, I actually threw it out the window last week.” Mikey’s eyes widened. “Holy shit, those fucking ghosts really like playing with us right?” Mikey started texting frenetically. “Bring it in your bag, I have free block during your lunch, we’re gonna burn this fucking abomination.”

 

Ray had filled the pockets of his loose jeans with little packets of salt, like Frank told him to do because apparently “this shit worked in Supernatural, so it must work in real life, y’know, dude?” They were in the woods behind the backyard and Bob had put rocks in a circle, as he explained “I learned to do in the boy scouts when I was a kid”. Pete almost laughed at him for having been a boy scout but Bob gave him a death glare so he decided to stop for his own good. That’s how Bob could get away with doing stupid loser stuff: he could break your legs if you even tried to laugh about it.

“Okay, who has their lighter?” Patrick asked and Joe, Gerard, Mikey, Frank and Ray got lighters or matches out of their pockets. “Y’all are probably gonna die soon because of your bad smoking habits.” They all shrugged. Patrick shook his head in disappointment and continued. “Anyway, Frank, toss me your matches.” Frank threw a little pack of matches at Patrick. “Thought you had a lighter, though?”

“My mom made me throw it away, along with my cigarettes, last night. Saw me smoking with Joe.” Joe smiled, remembering how bad Frank got screamed at. “Still brought matches to steal your guys’ cigs.” Patrick sighed, exasperated by Frank’s stubbornness to getting lung cancer and dying.

Gerard decided it was time to throw the doll in the middle of the rocks. Andy put dry leaves on it, Ray opened little packets of salt on the pile and Patrick lit a match and threw it on the leaves. They slowly took fire, with the help of Patrick and Joe blowing on them.

Gerard saw Bob have a little movement of recoil when the whole thing suddenly took fire but he didn’t care, he was finally done with this doll! He started cheering, looking at the doll’s face becoming browner and browner, celebrating the 'death' of it. He hugged his friends and crouched down to light a cigarette on the fire. They all sat down on the cold, wet ground and started eating in front of the fire, Bob a little more distant to the fire than them. Pete mentioned that he would have brought marshmallows if he knew that they were going to do this today. Frank even told Gerard that he would beat the living shit out of Rick if Gerard wanted. Gerard chuckled, asking him how his five foot gay ass could beat Rick, who was probably at least eight foot five or something. “I’ll hypnotize him with my charms first, obviously.” Frank replied, batting his eyelashes at Gerard. He laughed it off, but oh god did his heart skip a beat.

The atmosphere was way less tense than before the doll had been lit up and Gerard could feel himself being happy for the first time today since he discovered Frank’s pumpkin coffee surprise. They had created a little area of warmth and happiness in this cold, sad day of October. They all laughed and warmed their cold hands on the fire, feeling as if this lunch hour would never end. Frank even put his head on Gerard’s shoulder, pretending he was tired, totally not making Gerard smile like an idiot.

Five minutes before they had to go back to class, the fire put itself out. The doll and its fucking creepy face were still there.

“Okay, that’s fucked up.” said Andy, who was normally quiet. Gerard was too browned off to even be scared right now. “You tell me.” Bob stared intently at the doll, which only had some brown stains on its dress. “Look, we’ll leave it here, okay? It’s okay dudes, don’t worry. It won’t move from here, right?” He grabbed Gee’s shoulder from his side, bringing him closer to him reassuringly. Gerard was glad Bob tried to calm him and his brother down, but it still didn’t make him that relieved. The doll was going to come back sooner or later and he knew it.

 

Gerard was crouching in front of his locker, stuffing his school work into his back pack to go home. He had to hurry up; the bus was going to leave in 5 minutes. Okay, his math homework, his fucking long-ass history paper and, what was it again? He stopped for a moment, staring at the disorganized pile of books and folders lying in his locker. “Think, Gerard, think.” Gerard ordered himself out loud. He rummaged through the pile and finally found it. “Oh, yeah, the French one!” Just when he picked his school book, someone bumped into him, making him jump and drop his French homework material on the floor. “Fuck.”

He turned his head and looked up to see who made him drop his things, hoping this person would apologize but instead, he found Frank with a shit-eating grin on face. “You’re easily scared, man.” Gerard laughed nervously. “Fuck off, you made me drop my things.”

“Poor nervous little dude.” He picked up Gerard’s French homework, to apologize in his own asshole way, and handed it to him. “Hey, can I come over to your house? I don’t feel like going back home to do my homework.”

Gerard’s heart leaped and, before he knew it, he was grinning wide. He then looked down at the floor, trying to hide his glee. “Oh, yeah, hum, I’d have to ask my, my… Nah,” He looked back up at Frank “whatever, come over! You’ll take the bus with Mikey and I.”

Frank smiled back at Gerard and he knew that now his day wasn’t as bad as he had thought.

Frank had been on the seat in front of Mikey and Gerard’s and turned around to face them during the whole bus ride back home. Right when they came home, Mikey gave Gerard a ‘seriously, if you end up doing something on the couch, you better clean it up’ face, to which Gerard replied with a ‘Mikey I’m not a terrible person and we won’t do anything anyway, he probably isn’t even interested, I’m just giving myself delusions’ face and Mikey raised his eyebrows in a ‘you’re fucking blind’ way to which Frank replied with saying “What the fuck guys, stop doing that shit, you freak me out.”

Mikey gave Frank a small smile and went to his room, yelling at them while walking up the stairs “Ma’s not here but it doesn’t mean you guys can do whatever, I still can hear you.” Frank laughed his ass off and Gerard only rolled his eyes, slightly embarrassed.

Gerard dropped his bag on the floor and encouraged Frank to do the same. “Come on, we’ll watch something on TV.” Frank sat on the couch and Gerard did so at the opposite end of the couch. “Anything to procrastinate on doing homework.” Gerard laughed anxiously and turned the TV on. “So… what do we watch?” he asked, feeling more and more awkward after every second.

“I thought of coming over ‘cause there’s an A Haunting marathon today, it started at four, we only missed a part of the first episode!” Frank replied, hypocritically scooting a little bit towards Gerard while he wasn’t looking. Gerard started flipping through the channels. “Okay, yeah, we totally should. Which channel?”

“Space.”

“What a nerd.”

Frank laughed, scooting slowly towards Gerard again while Gerard was pressing the 70 on the remote. He turned his face to Frank, who stopped moving. Frank smiled at Gerard and Gerard smiled back. He went back to looking at the screen, sadly only seeing ads right now. Gerard could hear Frank fucking moving, he wasn’t deaf. He looked at his friend from the corner of his eyes. Frank was slowly shuffling, looking at the screen, trying not to make Gerard notice.

Gerard finally got it: Frank wasn’t there to only watch TV. Well, that was kind of cool. Gerard smiled. When Frank was rather close to him, Gerard stretched his arms up, yawning noisily, and let them fall on Frank’s shoulder. He turned his face only to see Frank smiling wide. Gerard laughed. “Fucking dork.”

Frank laughed and breathed out, sounding relieved, dropping his head on Gerard’s chest. He wrapped his arms around his waist, making Gee feel warm and protected. His legs were folded up on the couch and Gerard could feel Frank’s breath on his chest and his heat everywhere. It was so nice to feel someone against him, especially in the cold fall weather. Also, Frank may have been small, but he was like a heater or something, Gee was worried he may have a fever or something.

They watched TV, tangled like this, for a while. Gerard could smell Frank’s hair because he was so close. It smelled like mint and smoke and made Gerard’s stomach do weird things that only happened when he was entering a new comic book shop and it was hard for him to contain his excitement. After half an episode of being cuddled up like this, Gerard felt like it would be cool if they held hands, so he slowly tangled his fingers in between Frank’s. Frank, on the other hand, was more confident about it, and firmly grabbed his hand. He brought their hands to his mouth and kissed Gerard’s knuckles. “I think I’m repeating myself, but you are my very favourite person.”

Gerard laughed. “Oh yeah?”

“Hmm-hm.” Frank shook his head yes, Gerard could feel it on his chest. “And I’m afraid that, one day, I will have to kiss you.”

Gerard snorted, trying to hide how he wanted that one day to be right now. “And I’m afraid that, on that day, I’ll have to kiss you back.” Gerard knew that Frank laughed because he could feel his warm breath on his skin, through his t-shirt.

They continued watching TV together. How long had they stayed sprawled out on the couch like this? Gerard just didn’t know. It was like he was lost in a hurricane of Frank’s nice smelling hair, Frank’s warmth, Frank’s heartbeat on his own chest, Frank’s breath, Frank’s everything. It was too much for him. He couldn’t understand any of the episodes properly because he sometimes closed his eyes for a moment to feel more of Frank’s heartbeat or his knees against his thigh. Frank told him “Oh shit, I love this episode” at some point, his voice echoing on his chest and Gerard decided to watch correctly at least fifteen minutes of this episode. It was something about another family of white people moving into an old house and refusing to move out, even when knives were flying all around the said house. Gerard didn’t watch this show a lot now because of his ‘situation’, but he had thought it was cool, before he actually was one of those white people moving into old-ass haunted houses.

At some point during the episode, a ghost hunter entered the family’s house and was experiencing weird ghost stuff, like noises and doors closing. He then talked to the family, after his night in the house, about burning the spirit’s body with salt to get rid of it. Gerard’s eyes opened wide and he slapped his palm on Frank’s lap. “Frank.”

“Gerard.” Frank sounded as agape as Gerard.

“Did you?-“

“I sure as fuck did.” They looked at each other in disbelief. They were so close.

Gerard thought out loud “We have to find Edlyn’s body and burn it. With salt. Fuck, okay.”

Frank looked at him intensely. “Let’s tell Mikey.”

 

“Okay, we understand that you guys think we’re crazy but, I swear to god, we have to do that.” Gerard exclaimed himself the day after. The lunch table’s conversation had been taken over by Gerard, Mikey and Frank. The cafeteria smelled of smoke because someone forgot to take a cookie out of the microwave.

“Yeah!” added Frank. He continued in an assured voice. “It’ll be simple: we go to the archives after school...”

“…and we find where Edlyn’s buried.” Mikey completed. “After that…”

Ray interrupted, in a hesitant voice. “We burn the fuck out of their bodies?”

Mikey, Frank and Gerard all replied in a rather loud voice, seeming satisfied with their plan. “Yeah!”

Ray shook his head no, making his gigantic mane shake with his movements. “Seriously, you guys have become crazy.”

Andy chimed in, irresolute. “I mean, I heard of this method a lot? It might work, man.”

Ray looked at Andy in disbelief, then at Bob, Patrick, Joe, and Pete, trying to find people who were on his side. “Guys, they literally want us to search in non-poetry books for hours” he stared at Pete, trying to make him react, but got no negative reaction from him. “and then we’ll illegally” he looked at Patrick, trying to influence his decision “dig up someone’s body and then we’ll fucking burn it.” he glanced at Bob, who, he knew, was scared of fire. He was the only one who knew. Gerard looked at him and shook his head up and down. “Yeah, that’s it!”

Ray banged his head on the lunch table and mumbled about how he couldn’t believe his friends were crazy or something like that.

Bob suddenly talked over Ray’s almost crazy mumbling. "So like, could we slit a chicken's throat for a ritual? 'Cause I always found that way dramatic." Before the end of his first sentence, everyone shouted "No!" Frank and Andy a little bit louder than the others, which gave Bob a little satisfied smile, knowing that he had displeased people today. Joe finally joined the conversation, sounding perplexed. “Guys, you do realize that we’ll have to search for hours to actually find where Edlyn's been buried right?”

“I’m sure we can just go to the town’s archives section in the library and find it in a few hours max.” Frank replied.

Joe looked at him, unimpressed. “Edlyn died in which year? 1920?”

Gerard nodded. Joe smiled at him, only with his mouth. “The town’s archives fucking burned in 1925. Good luck guys.”

Gerard glared accusingly at Frank. He could see his jaw drop. Joe replied to their silence. “Yeah. So, as I said, good luck.” Pete looked at his friends with a worried look. “Well, we never know, maybe the death registers didn’t have the time to burn? We should still go look tonight before going home. We should skip our last class.” Gerard sighed in relief, stretching his arms out on the lunch table, pushing Tupperwares and water bottles out of his way. “Yes, skipping class, this sounds right.”

Ray couldn’t have been more exasperated even if he tried.

 

At three, Mikey, Frank, Gerard, Patrick, Pete and Bob all met in the school parking lot. Ray had refused to participate in this ‘terrible plan’ that was ‘doomed to fail’, Andy didn’t want to miss another math class and Joe simply didn’t believe they would find Edlyn’s name in the burial papers.They jumped in Pete’s car (driven by Bob) and hurried to the library. Immediately after they entered the rather small brick building, Gerard’s friends went to look for the archives while Gerard found a table on which they could throw enough books around.

Gerard waited for a while at the table, picking at the little wood splinters on the old table. Eventually his friends, their arms full with brown and whiter books, collapsed on their respective chairs, throwing the books on the table. “So, the birth registers didn’t burn in that goddamn fire, but the burial registers did, so I guess we should find Edlyn somewhere anyway, in case there is more information.” Patrick mumbled, seeming already tired.

“When did she die again?” Frank asked Gerard.

“Hmmm. In 1920. She was 25. So, she was born in…” Gerard tried counting on his fingers. Bob, who had been staring at him talking slowly whispered, to finish Gerard’s sentence in a ‘did you fail elementary school math’ kind of tone, “1895, Gerard, 1895.”

“Okay, fuck off, Bob, I fucking hate math.” Gerard mumbled. Frank laughed at him. Bob scoffed and mocked him. “Don’t act as if you were any better, Mr. I-passed-my-last-math-exam-with-a-51”

“Dude, that’s low.” replied Frank, still laughing, sounding proud rather than offended. “Also, yo, my birthday’s this Friday! Y’all remember, right? I hope you can all come!” Everyone nodded. Gerard also did. Lie. He was going to come, it’s not like he had other plans, but he totally had forgotten about it. It’s hard to remember that Halloween is coming when it’s Halloween in your house every fucking day. “Gerard, you still bringing me that vampire cape? I wanna be a vampire, I bought the little fangs and all!” Gerard turned his face to look at Frank and smiled. “Totally, it’s on my desk right now, I was about to put it in my bag this morning.” Another lie. But he couldn’t tell Frank the truth when he was staring at him, smiling, when he could totally imagine him being the most adorable vampire ever. “I’ll bring it tomorrow.”

Patrick looked at them and probably totally knew what was going on. He cleared his throat. “Guys, we should maybe work now, right? I’ll look into the 1895 birth registers, Bob, you check the history books about the town. You guys should probably look through the archived newspapers from around the time of Edlyn’s death. Edlyn’s husband was born in 1889, so someone should look into that too.” Everyone agreed and they started working.

Gerard was almost asleep when they stopped looking through the papers. His eyes were closing themselves without him trying to make them do so. His stomach was gurgling and he couldn’t concentrate on anything anymore. They had noted all the information they had found in one of Frank’s soggy and stained textbooks (what had they been through?) and he was pretty satisfied with what they had found, even if they still didn’t know where Edlyn was buried. He thought the notes written in multiple hand writings were pretty much done. He was also pretty sure that his friends thought the same. He wanted to re-read them a last time to be sure.

**_EDLYN BLAKE BRADFORD_ **

_(that one child murderer) ← Bob, she had problems, we all do._

_well i don’t go around murdering children in my free time but okay_

_-BORN IN 1895, HER MAIDEN NAME WAS GLEESON_

_-Married Blake Bradford in 1911, she was 16, he was 22← gotta admit that’s slightly creepy_

_-She moved into my house (SPOOKY) around that time, the house was much smaller then but they had the basement (where my room is), the kitchen, only one room+bathroom and the attic. It was literally a rectangle that had a basement and an attic._

_-was loved by the neighborhood and people in general_

_-I didn’t know our church was that old but yeah it existed around that time and she was baptized there (maybe buried in the cemetery behind there too? should check the registers soon)_

Other information was gathered around the sheet but Gerard didn’t think it was as important as what he had highlighted. He raised his head to see Mikey sleeping on the books. A lady with thick glasses and thin pursed lips woke him up by remembering them that the library was closing its doors in a few minutes. Gerard asked her, startled, “What? What time is it, miss?” The lady looked at him, seeming extremely annoyed. “It’s ten to eight, young man.” She then walked away, reminding another man who, Gerard was sure he had seen him, used the library’s internet to watch porn.

“Well, I guess we’ll have to go.” said Patrick, noisily closing a thick book. Mikey, who was sitting beside him, tried his best to wipe the drool puddle he had made on the big hardcover book he had been ‘studying’ for the past hour. “Yeah, we should. Gerard, could I go to your house, I want to get your vampire cape, y’know? Also, my mom’s not there and I have no food.” Frank stared at Gerard, all big tired green eyes, and how could he fucking resist? “Yeah, sure. Right, Mikey?” Gerard gave a quick look to Mikey, only moving his eyes, but couldn’t refrain himself from going back at staring at Frank’s parted lips. Mikey mumbled a little bit and Gerard took that as a yes. He replied for his brother. “Yeah, do come.” Frank smiled bright and broke eye contact to turn his face energetically to Bob’s. “You’re gonna drop us off, right Bob?”

“Sure.” said Bob without any conviction, sounding more like he wanted to be done with it than anything.

Frank went back to staring at Gerard and Gerard knew that he was in too deep.

Frank was looking around Gerard’s room and Gerard’s heart was about to jump out of his chest. He couldn’t imagine what would happen to his body if Frank and him actually kissed or probably even if Frank only, like, lightly brushed his fucking hand with his pinkie. Frank was now looking over at his desk as Gerard sat on his bed, convinced that he would shit himself if he stood up or saw Frank’s face.

He could hear Frank moving stuff around his desk and Gerard was asking himself what he was looking for. “Yo, can you lend me the cape, now? I can’t find it on your desk.” Oh. This. “Hm…” before he could talk further more and admit that he lied to Frank, Mikey screamed from upstairs “So, are you guys hungry or I’ll just make pasta for myself?” Frank turned around, looking at Gerard and screamed “Food!” with a big smile before storming out of Gerard’s room and rushing upstairs. Saved by Mikey. Gerard liked that guy. He finally took a deep breath (since when was he holding his breath?) and threw himself on the floor, kneeling in front of his closet and hurriedly rummaged through it to find the cape. After at least 2 minutes he found it hidden under old, weird objects that he kept as ‘art reference’ and 3 empty packs of cigarettes. He held the cape in front of himself. Nice, no burns or coffee stains. He approached it gingerly to his nose: it smelled almost clean. Satisfied, he ran upstairs with the black cape in his hand.

There, he found Mikey and Frank, both mucking around in his kitchen and had to stop and stare at them for a moment. Frank was putting dry spaghetti under his lips, right on his gums, to act as if he was a walrus and Mikey pulled them out to throw them in the boiling water, along with the rest of the pasta. Gerard smiled. Frank put joy into his house and that was so rare since when Mikey and his brother were home alone, they always feared another apparition. He wished Frank could always be there to reassure them both, even if he didn’t notice he did. He wanted every night to be like this.

Gerard was about to walk into the kitchen when he heard a small thump. Frank and Mikey suddenly looked up to where the sound came from. Gerard followed their gaze. The cupboard. He stayed in the kitchen’s entrance, intrigued. Frank turned his face and saw Gerard. He appeared surprised at first and, after a moment, he smiled big at Gerard, lifting his face and seeming as if he wanted to rip his mouth open. Then, the cupboard opened. Gerard jumped, gasping, and Frank turned around to see the source of the noise. Mikey slowly lifted his head up. Gerard could see his knees shaking, even if his face looked calm, like when he presented speeches. Gerard then saw the hot water faucet turning by itself. He stared at the boiling water falling from the tap before he heard a loud crash: plates were falling from the cupboard situated right on top of Frank and Mikey. Frank screamed, Mikey crouched and pulled Frank to the floor with him. In a fraction of seconds, Gerard had jumped in front of his brother and Frank, circling his arms around them and was lying on top of them. He was trying to protect them, the two most important people in his life at the moment, the best he could. He was screaming, doing his best to bury the sound of the crashing plates.

Gerard felt parts of plates bouncing on him. He felt Mikey’s back shake, Frank silently sobbing and screaming when a particularly big batch of plates fell too noisily and he wished he could make the loud noise and danger go away. But he couldn’t. Because a fucking invisible thing did this. To scare them, to hurt them, to chase them. He was holding back tears the best he could, but his wet cheeks proved to him that he had failed. A minute passed but it felt like 10 years. When the room became silent again and when he didn’t feel as if the world around him was deadly and falling apart, he looked up. Nothing moved for a moment. He thought he was safe but then he saw a large, decorative plate jumping from the cupboard’s shelf, falling in what seemed like slow motion. He shoved his face down to hide it, showing the plate the back of his head.

He didn’t remember hearing the impact. He only felt like he was a church bell. He was hit so hard on the back of his head that he felt his whole body resonate. His brains were exploding, he was ringing from the inside. The hunchback had given a hard blow to the Notre-Dame bell. He felt some hot liquid falling from the nape of his neck through his cold sweats. He could hear a far away “Oh my god” and a foreign “Get a cold towel”. He could hear noises, the birds around the Notre-Dame were chirping. Gerard could see blue and red even with his eyes closed. He opened them several times but it only made him dizzy and everything was grey and blurry. He felt something cold down his neck. He opened his eyes once again. He was facing the floor and lying all over it, his limbs everywhere on the kitchen tiles.

He started mumbling against the cold tiles. “Fr… Frank. Mikey.” He felt hands on his shoulders: warmth. He palmed the floor and a chill went down his neck. It was so cold, no wonder he craved warmth. He turned his face to the side, guiding his hand from the tiles to the warm hands, bringing them to his face, his neck, his shoulders. “Frank. I got…” he touched his mouth with the hands. It was all numb, like he had just come back from the dentist. “Got your cape.” He heard a soft laugh. He smiled. He mumbled softly “Esmeralda.” He opened his eyes: everything was blurry at the edges but, yup, that was Frank. He was so beautiful, even when he was blurry.

He felt another pair of hands, patting his back and reapplying, urgh, cold on his neck. “Don’t…” He moved one of his hands again and again on the floor, protesting. “Gerard, shut the fuck up, you got hit in the back of the head by one of our huge ass plates and you’re bleeding, I have to help you. Wanna go to the hospital?”

“No… Nooooo.” moisture created on the tiles when he breathed. Nice. “I’m all. I’m all good. Are you good? I know. I know I am. Mikey, you hurt?”

“Sure. And no, I’m not, but you had a hard blow, bro.” Mikey sounded worried. He took away the cold water towel from his neck. Frank looked over. “I don’t think he needs stitches.” Gerard smiled. Haha, no hospital for me, motherfucker. “I told you. I’m all good.” He turned around on his back, even if Mikey was gasping and screaming at him to stop, he’d worsen it, blah blah. Gerard knew he was fine. He sat up. He suddenly felt dizzy, as if the whole kitchen was turning around him, mocking his pain. He closed his eyes and saw little red and blue stars. “Oh. No. Bad idea. Baaad idea.” Gerard slowly pushed himself down, Frank's hands helping him to lie down gently.

“That’ll teach you to be all heroic.” Mikey laughed.

“I wanna protect you guys. I love you, guys.”

“No homo.” said Frank, supporting Gerard’s head and placing Mikey’s towel underneath it.

Gerard cringed at how the cold towel once again felt against his neck, but then smiled at him. “You never know.”

Mikey clicked his tongue. “Okay, Gee, we’ll have to put you in your bed. Maybe mom should call to say you’re not going to school tomorrow, I think you had a small concussion.”

Frank and Mikey wrapped their arms around Gerard’s shoulder. He did his best to stand up on his feet. It was hard, they felt like cotton balls. “Shit. A concussion.” The ground was uneven. He looked around the kitchen only to see bits of china and ceramic all over the floor. “Momma’s gonna be so fucking pissed, Mikey. First, the ceiling, now this.” His brother pursed his lips. He helped Gerard to the stairs before answering.

“We’re gonna put you in your bed, don’t worry, I’ll take care of that. She doesn’t know about the ceiling.”

Gerard felt bad about his brother having to do everything for him but going down the stairs made him forget about that. It was a living hell. His legs slipped under his weight and transferring from leg to leg was impossible. He mumbled “Imagine if I was a dog.” to make Frank and Mikey understand how lucky he was to only have to coordinate two legs, but they didn’t seem to understand him. Mikey finally had to hold Gerard from under his arms and Frank wrapped Gerard’s legs around his waist and went down the stairs backwards. Gerard laughed, feeling like a potato bag. “I feel like a potato bag.” he giggled, sharing his insightful thoughts. Frank cracked up, almost dropping him and Mikey just held on tighter, kind of hurting Gerard’s armpits. But, he didn’t care. He just dumbly smiled at Frank’s laughing face, never mind about his probable double chin that Frank could see from this angle.

They eventually stepped into his room and placed Gerard’s limp body on his bed. He never thought he’d be this happy to smell his dirty Batman sheets. “Thanks, Mikey, thanks, Frank.” he mumbled against his sweaty pillow. He didn’t hear any answer, only Mikey telling Frank to grab a sweep.

 

He was woken up by his gurgling stomach. His head ached, he felt like his brain was trying to get out of every single one of his facial orifices. He slowly patted his hair.

It was dark outside and his opened blinds, despite the smallness of the window, let the eerie light of the night in. The shadows of leaves in the wind that created small black moving patterns on the carpet floor made Gerard’s head pound, despite their creepy aestheticism.

He also felt something warm against him. It was nice, like when Mikey and he had a golden retriever, back when his parents were still together, and it was sleeping next to Gerard. His lower back felt chilly. He decided to bring the warm thing to it.

Gerard then noticed that the thing had an ass. And a really nice one. Shocked, he quickly turned around, making his head ache and spin. He whispered, extremely confused, “Holy motherfucking shit fucking fuck.” Frank laughed between his shoulder blades, warming his t-shirt and his skin. “It’s not morning yet, shut up.” He opened and closed his eyes at least five times to be sure that he wasn’t dreaming. That it wasn't some kind of sick torture from his brain. But no, Frank really was behind him, his arm wrapped around Gerard’s tummy and his warm chest against Gerard’s back. Gerard turned his body to face Frank.

“Hope you don’t mind, I was cold.”

“No… It’s cool.” Did Gerard’s concussion make him stutter or was it the fact that Frank was spooning with him for, like, the third time? “I’m sorry about like. The ass grab. Sorry.”

Frank grinned lazily. “You sick perv.” His eyes were closed, he was mumbling with a tired and scratchy voice. Gerard was glad he wasn’t standing up because his knees would probably have given in. “Your parents. Hm.” He had to stop talking: his voice seemed far, noises hurt his ear and his brain was pounding after every word. He restarted his sentence, forgetting the pain, “Your parents, aren’t they worried?”

Frank replied, still half-sleeping, whereas Gerard was now wide awake, thanks to his hunger and throbbing headache. Frank’s arm stayed where it was, loosely wrapped around Gerard’s waist. “Mom’s not home. I called my sister, told her I slept over here. She didn’t care.”

“Sister? She must be so hot.” Gerard sometimes thought he should think more before talking. Really. Frank smiled and finally opened his eyes. Gerard stared back at him. He didn’t know how long they gazed into each other’s eyes like this, but strangely, Gerard didn’t feel uncomfortable, unlike when he had to stare into his creepy uncle’s eyes to talk to him. He couldn’t concentrate on any awkwardness right now, only about how beautiful Frank was and how wonderful this moment felt. As if they could understand each other, as if nothing could ever be awkward between them. As if they should kiss. But Gerard didn’t flinch. Frank approached his face to Gerard’s. He got nervous, his eyes opened wide. He could feel Frank’s warm breath against his nose. Frank only buried his face on Gerard’s chest, though, resting his head under his chin, bringing himself closer with his arm that was wrapped around Gerard’s back. What a fucking tease.

“She sadly isn’t.” Gerard laughed and kissed Frank’s hair. He didn’t know why he did this and if he should have but it smelt like mint and smoke and it was so soft, puffy and wavy. He wanted to sleep in it. Frank didn’t complain: he even moved his head against Gee’s lips, wanting more, so he probably didn’t fuck up. Gerard suddenly remembered what had happened before he passed out on his bed, before Frank crawled into his bed. “Yo. The ghost did that.”

“Hm?” Frank’s voice resonating against his chest made him shiver. He nevertheless continued his train of thought.

“The ghost, my head. It did that.”

Gerard felt Frank shift his face. “Yeah.” His voice was muffled and Gerard could feel his mouth moving against his chest. Frank frowned and made a worried face – Gerard fortunately couldn’t see that. “I’m sorry you have to live with that. I wish I could protect you from all harm. Especially invisible harm that I can’t fight.” Gerard laughed.

“Sure, you can totally fight. You’re like 5’4.”

“Doesn’t stop me from being strong, man.”

“Mmhhmm.” Gerard pet Frank’s hair, and Frank moved his head closer to Gerard’s hand. Frank said he was strong and Gee wanted to check his arm to confirm that. He looked at his pale, ink stained bicep. He actually looked pretty muscular for his height, his arm as thick as Gerard’s, but it was toned and made of actual muscles, not of weird fat distribution. His growling stomach suddenly reminded him how he much he was fucking starving. Frank backed off when he heard the monstrous noise. Gerard ignored that move. “Did you guys clean up? Also, is there any food left?”

Frank smiled, relieved that it was only Gerard’s stomach and not another ghost attack. “We did clean up, but your mom came in just as we did. She got so angry, bro, I thought she’d break the remaining intact plates. Mikey didn’t have the balls to tell her what had happened. He promised to pay for new plates. Also, there’s pasta left in the fridge. Wanna eat some?”

“Dude, I’m literally so hungry, yes. I’ll go.” he moved his arm to give himself a swing to come out of the bed.

“Okay, I’m coming with you.”

Gerard was sitting up on the bed and stopped at those words. “Oh, you know you don’t have to, right?” Frank laughed and grabbed Gerard’s arm to pull himself to sit up too. “Dude, you had a small concussion, won’t leave you on your own like this.” Gerard chuckled and did his best to get out of bed. He tried to stand up but then had to go back onto the bed. He was dizzy and his legs didn’t feel strong enough. Frank hastily got out of bed to help Gerard sit back up again. He then pulled him on his feet and helped him gain his balance. He supported his weight while they were both walking upstairs, as if Gerard had broken his leg. Gerard didn’t think that going up the stairs could be that hard and that said a lot, considering his physical shape.

When they finally were in the dining room, Gerard just let himself drop into a chair and rested his head on his crossed arms. His head was spinning, he didn’t even dare looking around the room, he knew that it would be moving and turning, teasing him, like back when he was 14 and had started getting drunk. At that time, he had only had enough alcohol under his hand for his head to start spinning.

He then heard plates moving around and heard one drop right in front of him: he jumped and rose his head up, scared that he would get his head hit again by a fucking plate. He looked at it and he saw warm pasta right in front of him. He then saw Frank sitting on the chair that was on his left side. He was holding his face with his hands that he had covered with his dark green sweater’s sleeves (that totally made his eyes pop), and was smiling sleepily at Gerard. Gerard smiled back at him and started eating the pasta. After his first bite, Gerard couldn’t believe it – they were fucking delicious. 

“What the fuck, this is delicious? How did Mikey do this?! He can’t even cook Kraft Dinner right!” 

Frank chuckled. “I actually made them. My mom taught my sister and I how to cook at a very young age.” 

“Jesus Christ, this tastes like heaven, are you fucking Betty Crocker?” 

“I prefer men.” 

It took a moment for him to get the joke, but when he did, he stared at Frank with the look he gave Mikey when he made terrible puns. Frank was trying to hold back his laughter. Gerard knew that the sides of his mouth were lifting but he only said, “Right, anyway.” He ate another bite of the pasta, closing his eyes and sinking back into his chair. He moaned and said, “This is so fucking good bro.” Good food totally took away the headache. Or took over it, probably. 

Gerard opened his eyes again to see Frank staring at his mouth. Frank brought his tongue to his lips, then resumed eye contact. “Hm?” 

Gerard blushed a little, smiling. “Your pasta. It’s good.” 

“Oh, thanks!” 

After Gerard had finished his plate, only laughing and agreeing by humming to Frank’s stories, too busy eating, Frank reminded him that they should go back to sleep, recalling that they had school tomorrow morning. Urgh. Gerard growled, sliding down his chair, “No, not school.” 

“Yeah, school,” Frank replied sounding disappointed himself. 

 

Waking up next to Frank to the sound of his alarm clock, even on a school day was, weirdly enough, a blessing. His room was cold, his house was scary, the weather outside was terrible but there, just there, between the warm and soft sheets with Frank, their hands somehow tangled and the smell of Frank’s laundry soap and shampoo, it was the happiest place he could ever be. It wasn’t terrifying like going to school or going through a loud crowd or walking around his house at night. It was beautiful – obviously, since Frank was there – and comforting. Seeing Frank open his eyes slowly, kind of like an early spring sunrise, made his stomach flutter. How lucky was he?

“G’morning.” Again, Frank’s scratchy voice. It made Gerard smile, wishing he wasn’t too nervous (or that his mouth didn’t smell so much like shit) to kiss him. “We have school,” he made an annoyed face while saying this. 

“I know. But at least, your birthday is this Friday.” “At least. Only 4 days to go.” Gerard couldn’t resist the sheet’s pattern on Frank’s face and his puffed up eyes, he had to close the distance between their faces. He lightly kissed his nose, wishing he’d have the guts to kiss him lower. Frank closed his eyes and smiled. He approached his face of Gerard’s neck and gently kissed it. Frank’s soft lips and the cold of his lip ring on Gerard’s neck made his body tremble. His eyes fluttered shut and he couldn’t help but gasp a little. Jesus Christ, he didn’t know he had a thing for neck kissing, fuck, but now he was only hoping for more, or a hickey or two. Frank laughed at Gerard and gave him a pat on the side. “C’mon, let’s eat breakfast, I’m hungry.” 

During breakfast, Mikey didn’t stop giving Gerard, who was smiling dumbly, weird ‘What the fuck did you even do last night’ looks to which his brother replied with ‘Nothing, you dipshit, I’m just happy’. Mikey could only scrunch up his face and give him a death stare that probably meant something along the lines of ‘Happy? On a school morning? Sure!’ to which Frank silently yelled, not to wake Mrs. Way up, “Guys, I told you that that shit freaked me the fuck out, just please let me eat my fucking PB and J in peace.” 

Gerard laughed, looking lovingly at Frank and continued smoking his morning cigarette while drinking OJ. The mix of tastes wasn’t too bad. Also, the porch door was open, so it counted as smoking outside. Maybe not to his mom, but to him, yes, and that was all that mattered. He ended up smoking two cigarettes and talking to his brother and Frank longer than he thought, but when Gerard’s friend went downstairs to put on his pants (Mikey had lent him pajama pants for the night), he decided it was time to prepare himself for the day too. He went to the bathroom to get ready, leaving Mikey alone in the kitchen. He rinsed his face, passed his hand through his hair to make it look presentable (he should wash this rat’s nest soon) and he decided to line his lower lashes with some eyeliner. Whatever about other people at school, he was way too happy to be brought down by someone right now. 

After being done in the bathroom, he decided to go back into his old lilac bedroom, almost having forgotten what it looked like. His mother had wanted to make it a guest room, but, right now, there were only boxes everywhere and dust piling up on a commode. He dusted it with his hand, watching the speckles of dust fall into the morning light. It was strangely beautiful, eerie. His head almost didn’t throb anymore from the light. Gerard then turned around to face the large window that was the center of attention of the room: that was the only thing that he had liked in there. He opened it and sat down on its border, putting his head outside to feel the cold rush of wind and staring at the dark clouds. He felt rain on him, but he didn’t mind. Autumn was so pretty, it was his favourite season. 

Frank was pretty too. Frank’s eyes were like a forest in early fall, not too green, pleasant, and comforting. They made him think about the season, Halloween, the smell of its cold air, wind picking up leaves in colourful spins, its cloudy days, McDonald’s special pumpkin coffees and, perhaps, Frank. 

He actually did like Frank. 

Frank smelled like cigarette smoke in winter, sleep, his sheets’ washing detergent, coffee, and minty shampoo. Only his smell made him weak at the knees. It made him feel good, at home, made him want to smile stupidly and burrow his nose between his shoulder blades or in his hair. His smell wasn’t the only think that made Gee smile stupidly, Frank’s face did too. His small dimples, his dumb face scrunching up when he laughed, his piercings moving with his pale lips and tiny nose, Frank’s stupid cut out shirts, the sheet pattern printed on Frank’s face after he had just woken up, Frank’s hands, Frank’s laugh, their midnight strolls, Frank’s illegal tattoos, Frank’s… Frank. 

Fuck. 

Frank couldn’t love Gerard. But then again, did Frank randomly spoon with anybody? Did Frank take everyone out at 1 AM to go stargazing? Did he prepare pumpkin lattes for anyone? Did he kiss Ray, Pete or Patrick on the neck? Gerard couldn’t believe his thoughts, that Frank actually liked liked him, but they still made him smile and feel all warm and fuzzy, butterflies taking over his stomach. 

Maybe Frank totally liked him back. Probably. Almost surely. 

Something moving made him retire from his cheesy thoughts, though. From the corner of his eyes, he could see the lady that lived in front of them. He had only seen her twice. The first time was when he had moved out here (he couldn’t believe that was nearly a month ago – he could swear Monroe was him in another life – a loser without any friends who had hopeless crushes on straight guys that would never like him back). The second time was when he was waiting for his school bus. She always had pursed lips, a ghost like appearance and stared at him in a way that made him mildly uncomfortable, like those British orphan kids in creepy movies. 

Today, she was staring at him from her window, which was parallel to his. Gerard could barely see her because of the pouring rain but he decided to wave at her, slowly and uncertainly, trying to be friendly to her. She was old and lonely; maybe she only wanted a friend? 

He could see her moving, he was almost sure she had waved back at him, though he didn’t really know because the rain made her blurry through her window. Then, her blinds closed and Gerard felt kind of sad. Maybe she didn’t want a friend. But who needed an old lady as a friend when a soul-crushingly cute punk guy had a fucking crush on him? Gerard smiled to himself and got down from the window’s edge, walking back downstairs to get ready. 

Gerard handed Frank his vampire cape before going to school. Frank thanked him by kissing him on the cheek and Gerard acted as if he didn’t see Mikey’s dirty look. He was too concentrated on the butterflies invading his stomach and stopping himself from grabbing Frank and making the fuck out with him, right there, in front of their house, anyway.

After school, they went to the town’s archives but sadly they didn’t find anything new. Gerard went home with Mikey, they talked to their mother, Gerard worked on his Buffy fan-comic, did his chemistry homework the best he could (which means underlining some information and sighing dramatically hard) and went to sleep, smelling Frank on his pillow. 

 

On Wednesday, when he came back home from school (alone, because Mikey went to hang out with Pete), he saw a little letter on his front porch. He picked it up from the ground, thinking it was from his mother, telling him that she was out to buy butter or something, but he didn’t recognize the light-yellow postcard packaging. He opened it, intrigued. A small, rather tilted writing was at the center of the letter: 

_ Come see me for tea at 3 o'clock this Saturday.  _

_ Best regards,  _

_ Mrs. Saunders _

 

At the bottom of the letter, there was an address: it was the house in front of his.


End file.
